


The Chronicles of Ohu

by Eclipse_Wolven



Category: Ginga | Silver Fang
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:53:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 54,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25040446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eclipse_Wolven/pseuds/Eclipse_Wolven
Summary: After the war against Akakabuto, Gin and his friends go on a journey to pay respects to the families of their comrades who died in battle, expecting it to be relatively uneventful.  Unfortunately for them, it's not...
Comments: 3
Kudos: 1





	1. Story 1 - The Protector

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written between 2013-2014 and is the one I'm most proud of by far. It takes place in between GNG and GDW and is supposed to tie the two series together. Up until now it's only been on FF.net and the old defunct 'Gingaboard' message board. I haven't updated or revamped it, though I may do so in the future. It's based primarily off of GNG, though I added a few characters from GDW where I could while having it fit into the canon as neatly as possible. Hope everyone likes it!
> 
> I don't own the Ginga series or its characters, but the original ones in this story are mine.

The forest was nearly pitch black at night. It was so thick and impenetrable that it let in practically no light after a certain point of the day, and as of that moment, that point was rapidly approaching. Sen shot his tongue out and casually slid it over his fangs, still tasting blood on them. That taste made him think back to the fight, and he grinned, remembering how the Terrier they had attacked had begged them not to hurt him. Pleaded. Told them he was just passing through. Makoto had broken his jaw right then and there and Sen torn his tail off just for a laugh, which he gotten when the dog had let out a high-pitched shriek of pain. Next to him, Makoto was clearly thinking about the same thing, but seemed restless, almost like it hadn’t been satisfying enough for him. Sen glanced over at the Tosa.

“You know, we’re getting pretty close to the Saitama Pack’s territory.” he said. “Think we should go around?”

“Fuck that.” the other dog answered in a gruff voice. “It’ll take an extra day. Besides, I’m bored. I need a good fight.”

“You just had one!” Sen scoffed.

“What? That back there?” Makoto said. “Tch. That pussy was no challenge at all. He didn’t even fight back.”

“You messed him up pretty good, though.” Sen laughed. “That’s not enough for one day?”

Makoto grinned arrogantly and licked lips.

“It’s better when they fight back.” he responded. “It makes it more satisfying when you hurt ‘em.”

Sen nodded in agreement, looking around at the trees, and then stopped, doing a double take. Calling for his companion to stop, he gestured with his head.

“Hey, Makoto!” he called quietly. “Check this out!”

Padding back irritatedly, the Tosa walked up beside the mutt and followed his gaze. Then his interest perked. Moving slowly through the trees not more than 50 feet away from them was another dog. Looking closer, they saw that it was a Husky, the curved, fluffy tail giving it away, and that it was young, no more than 1-2 years old. Makoto let out a delighted chuckle.

“What do you know?” he said, looking at Sen with a bloodthirsty grin. “We’re gonna get some warm-up practice.”

Sen echoed his laugh and followed the bigger dog expectantly as he dashed forward, moving silently behind the trees. When the Husky was close enough, they leapt out in front of him, cutting off his path. 

“Where you going, kid?” Makoto drawled, strutting stiff legged around him. “Taking a midnight stroll?”

The Husky didn’t answer. He looked gaunt, and despite his youth, his eyes were sunken and tired, and he looked like he hadn’t slept in a thousand years. 

“Hey!” the Tosa snapped. “You hear me, bitch? This is **my** territory now! And walking in it without my permission is a punishable offense!”

“Please just let me pass.” the Husky said softly, his voice sounding like he had lost the habit of using it. “Just let me keep going and I won’t bother you.”

Sen lunged out and smacked him in the face with a paw.

“No one said you could talk, bastard!” he hissed and Makoto laughed.

“You know, Sen.” he said. “I think we should teach this kid some manners.”

“I was just thinking the same thing.” Sen responded, moving around to the opposite side of their victim.

The Husky’s gaze, which had been on the ground during the whole encounter, panned up and met theirs, and they could both see that he looked terrified.

“Please.” he whispered with a quaver in his voice. “You don’t know what you’re doing. Just leave…”

Makoto lunged and bit him on the back of the neck. Then he threw him to the ground and Sen stomped down on his chest to wind him. The Tosa grinned sadistically down at the younger dog as he let out a wheezing gasp.

“You’re going to wish you never met me, boy.” he said and Sen laughed. 

Suddenly, there was a rustle in the trees above their heads and both dogs looked up fast. Makoto took a few steps away from the other two.

“Oh, you have friends!” he growled, then shouted. “Come on out, you idiots, I can fucking hear you!”

There was no answer and more rustles sounded from different spots all around them. Sen looked around, seeing Makoto getting more and more pissed off by the second. 

“What’s the matter?” the Tosa yelled. “Too scared to come out and – ”

Suddenly, there was movement from his left and Sen heard Makoto start screaming in pain. Looking over at him, the mutt froze in terror. The Tosa’s lower jaw dangled from a single side, and the screaming noise he was trying to let out was muffled by the damage that had been done. Then there was a flash to his right and Makoto was on his back, his throat spouting blood from a gaping wound that had suddenly appeared there. Sen turned and ran, leaping around a tree back the way they had come and feeling his heart racing faster than it ever had before. 

Immediately, he was hit from the back and felt a splitting pain in his underside before he found himself flying backwards into a tree. When he opened his eyes once more, Sen found that he couldn’t move. Looking down at himself, he nearly fainted. His entire underside was split open and his entrails were spilling out onto the ground between his legs. Then he saw the young Husky walking past him once more, the same tired, sad expression on his face, and he let out a whine of fear and pain. The other dog stopped and turned. 

“H-Help m-me…” Sen managed to get out. 

The Husky shook his head and Sen suddenly saw a tall, looming black figure standing behind him, its blazing, maniacal eyes staring over the young dog’s back right at him. Sen saw the Husky’s head droop a little.

“I warned you.” he whispered. 

Then he turned and walked slowly away, and Sen saw the figure leap back into the darkness of the trees like a ghost, leaving him there bleeding heavily. Seconds later, Sen’s vision faded entirely, and he died alone, his stunned mind not even able to comprehend the reason why.  
  


* * *

  
Gin sighed, blinking fatigue out of his eyes as he heard John and Kurotora arguing behind him. It was still early in the day and he was tired as it was, but listening to his friends quarrelling after everything this trip was making them go through already was just making it worse. The group of them, all leaders and commanders of the Ohu Army, had left their home in Futago Pass only two weeks ago, traveling south in order to give condolences to the families of those who had died while fighting alongside them during the great battle against Akakabuto. 

Gin had almost grown fully into his role of leader, despite the mere 3 months it had been since the battle’s end and his father Riki’s death, but nothing had prepared him for the challenge of facing the families of his deceased comrades, and having to tell them of their loved ones’ demise. It was especially hard when they had left children behind, and it made him feel even worse to see **their** reaction to the knowledge that their father or uncle or brother was not coming back. Sometimes, in their grief, they even blamed Gin and the others, and though he was usually more than willing to accept the blame, whether it was actually his fault or not, some of his companions were not so understanding, and it made them quite angry. Kurotora was one of these, and given that they had just left a territory where this had happened, he was going off pretty fiercely at the moment, much to John’s chagrin. 

“God, Kai!” the German Shepherd was growling in irritation. “Shut up! Between this trip and your babbling it’s a wonder one of us hasn’t snapped yet!” 

“I don’t care!” came the snorted answer. “They didn’t need to respond like that! We offered our condolences, what more did they want? They should keep in mind that we didn’t have to come down here at all!”

“That’s enough, Kurotora.” Gin said calmly over his shoulder, having become something of an expert in dealing with the younger Kai brother’s moodiness. “ **You** should keep in mind that they’ve lost a loved one. Our suffering is nothing compared to theirs. Getting angry at them won’t help a thing.”

“That doesn’t mean I have to like it, leader.” Kurotora responded sullenly, though Gin could tell by his tone of voice that he had silently agreed. 

“Where’s our next destination, Gin?” Smith asked from behind him, “I’m getting hungry here.”

From his position on Gin’s right, Akame answered him before Gin could.

“The Saitama Prefecture.” the ninja-dog said. “And we’re only about an hour out. Hold out Smith, we’re nearly there.”

“It’s all right.” Gin interrupted, coming to a stop. “A meal might do us some good.”

He sniffed at the air, his nose picking up a number of scents as the rest of his friends stopped as well. 

“There’s a river over there.” he said, gesturing with his head. “I’ll go catch us some fish.”

“Leader, you really don’t have to.” Chutora told him from his position near his brother. “One of us can go do it instead.”

Gin chuckled.

“I got it.” he said. “All of you rest a while.”

Then he headed off, hearing Chutora quip:

“That’s just like you, Smith. How dare you make the leader supply the food?! Why don’t you just go back to Ohu if you’re not going to contribute!”

“Hey! Don’t say unnecessary things, Tora!” came the response. “Gin did it because he wanted to! I just...”

As he went out of earshot of them, Gin yawned, stretching his legs a little as he approached the river. Walking up to its banks, he waded carefully into the water, keeping his eyes out for fish. Seeing one, he darted his head into the water and grabbed it in his jaws, tossing it onto the bank once he was sure it was dead. Suddenly, as he turned back to find another, his nose caught a new scent. Blood… Looking around, Gin perked his ears up, checking for anything suspicious. The area was quiet, and he frowned, seeing nothing. 

‘This journey is starting to get to me.’ he thought. ‘I’m getting paranoid.’

Shaking his head, he looked down at the river again…and found himself staring at a dead face under the water, its blank eyes wide and terrified as the flowing water washed its blood away down stream. Gin froze, his muscles tensing up as he looked at the corpse. It seemed to have floated down from upstream, getting caught on a rock as it reached the area where he was standing. That was the only way to explain how he hadn’t seen or sensed it before. Checking to see if anyone was in sight around the river, Gin reached into the water and grabbed the dog by the back of his neck, yanking him off the rock and onto the shore seconds later. As he did, he heard a voice behind him. 

“Gin?! What the hell happened?!”

Turning, Gin saw Smith standing there, his combined disgusted and startled expression telling him that the Spaniel had been harassed into coming to help by the others, only to stumble upon Gin’s find. The Akita looked back at the corpse. 

“I don’t know.” he said truthfully. “I found him in the water.”

“Somebody did a real number on him.” Smith said, sniffing it as he walked around it in a circle. “He’s split open all the way down the middle.”

Suddenly, before Gin could answer, the rest of the Ohu group burst out of the trees, looking ready for a fight.

“What’s going on?” John asked intensely. “We heard Smith’s yell.”

“Scream is more like it.” Kurotora teased, apparently having gotten over his earlier anger at least a little.

“Hey!” Smith barked in anger. “It wasn’t – ”

“Stop.” Akame said simply, his voice calm but authoritative. “What happened here?”

“I don’t know.” Gin responded. “I just pulled him out of the water. It looks like he was killed not too long ago.”

“Looks like he pissed someone off pretty good before he went too.” Great remarked, looking at the gaping wound in the dog’s underside.

“Do you think he’s one of the Saitama dogs?” Chutora asked, and Gin shrugged.

“Your guess is as good as mine.” he said. “But either way, I think we should get there faster. Maybe they’ll know who he is.”

“We should bury him.” Smith said and Gin nodded at him, watching as he and Great proceeded to dig a grave a few feet away for the dog’s body. 

Once they were done and the dog was buried, Gin called them all together and they moved out once more, increasing their speed to the territory of the Saitama pack.   
  


* * *

  
“You’re kidding!” a dog in the group in front of them yelped. “It’s not true!”

“We’re very sorry for your loss.” Gin said, his head bowed with the others as he faced the group’s leader. “You should know that your brother died bravely. We wouldn’t have gotten as far as we did without him.”

“As expected from Saito!” said another dog. “Even in death he was magnificent!”

Gin bit his tongue, not having the heart to tell them that Saito had died in one hit only seconds after the battle against Madara began, having not even brought down one bear. It had taken longer to get to Saitama then they had expected, and it was now later in the day, but once they had arrived, they had been brought immediately to the territory’s boss dog, a Belgian Shepherd named Kouzou. Kouzou had welcomed them warmly, but had been understandably devastated to hear the news of Saito’s death, as he was his little brother. And unlike the other dogs standing there, news of his older brother’s heroism, false though it was, did little to comfort him, and he turned away from Gin and the others to try and compose himself a little. After a moment, he turned back.

“Was it quick?” he asked and John nodded.

“It happened fast.” he said. “I don’t think he felt much.”

If Kouzou could tell they were still lying, he didn’t show it, and he stood a little straighter as he walked back up to them.

“I thank you very much for coming all this way to tell us.” he said, looking at Gin. “And you don’t have to apologize. I know my brother was happy to help you in your worthy cause.”

Gin was caught slightly off guard by the understanding and cordialness of this response and he suddenly found himself liking the other dog very much, grateful to him for the change of pace from the reactions in the other territories they’d been to. 

“Thank you.” he said. “You have our deepest sympathies.”

Kouzou nodded at all of them and then turned away. Before he could leave, though, Gin got his attention once more.

“Forgive me,” he said. “But on the way here, we found the body of a dog in the river about an hour away. A mix breed missing an ear. Was he one of yours?”

Kouzou looked exasperated.

“Damn it.” he swore and a subordinate to his left turned to him immediately.

“What should we do with this one sir?” he asked and Kouzou glanced at him.

“Send out some scouts and check on it.” he said. “Then report back to me.”

“There’s no need.” Gin said before the other dog could respond. “We already buried him. Did you know him?”

Kouzou looked at him.

“His name was Sen.” he responded. “He was a stray who lived around this area, sort of a local troublemaker and thug. Honestly, dying might be the best thing for him.”

“What did he mean by ‘this one’?” Akame asked from Gin’s right and the Shepherd’s gaze panned to him.

“There’s been a number of unexplained deaths in this prefecture recently.” he said. “Sen’s brings it up to 8…that we know of.”

“You can’t figure out what’s killing them?” the ninja-dog asked after a pause and Kouzou shook his head.

“No.” he answered. “We find them in different places, in different conditions, and there’s never any witnesses. The only thing connecting them is that whoever killed them really seemed to enjoy ripping them to shreds. We found one a few days ago that had no face left at all.”

Gin looked concerned by this news.

“How long has this been going on?” he asked. 

“About two weeks.” Kouzou responded. “I’ve warned the neighboring packs and had scouts keeping watch, but so far nothing’s come of it.”

Gin opened his mouth to say something else, but suddenly, another dog burst through the trees to his right, skidding to a halt a few feet from Kouzou. 

“Sir!” he said, panting hard as if he had run very fast from wherever he’d come from. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but we’ve got another one. Sir, you need to see this.”

Kouzou growled angrily.

“Son of a bitch!” he hissed and then ran after his subordinate, who had disappeared back into the trees.

Gin quickly leapt after him, hearing John, Akame, and the others right on his tail. At the pace they moved, it didn’t take them long to find their destination, and soon they found themselves at the edge of a clearing overlooking another bend in the river, which flowed through most of the Saitama territory. There they found Kouzou and his dogs looking up at a tree near the water. When Gin did the same, he froze. Hanging from the tree, a branch speared through his neck to keep him suspended there, was the body of another dog, a Tosa this time, a gaping wound visible on his neck as his lower jaw dangled from only one side of his mutilated face. 

“Damn…” Smith muttered, looking slightly sickened by the sight and Gin saw Kouzou shake his head.

“This bastard’s getting bold.” he growled. “This one’s closer to our home base than any of the others.”

Then he turned and looked at them, nodding back over his shoulder at the body. 

“This dog’s name is Makoto.” he said. “He’s a former fight dog from Shikoku that got expelled by the others a while back for killing his sparring partner in the ring illegally. After that he came up here. Makoto wasn’t just a nasty piece of shit, he was also one of the best fighters in the area. Nobody but the boss dogs messed with him. Whoever had the balls to do **that** to him, must have some serious fighting skill.”

“Does your pack have any enemies that could be targeting **you**?” Akame asked and the Shepherd shook his head again. 

“No.” he said. “I mean, of course we have enemies. Who doesn’t? But any of ours would just attack us head on, fight it out face to face. None of them would do this, or have the skill to.” 

As Gin looked at him, he could tell by the dog’s demeanor that he was getting worried and that this on top of the news of his brother’s death was beginning to overwhelm him a little. Glancing over to his companions, he saw that they had noticed the same thing. John looked back at him as he stared. 

“What are you thinking, Gin?” he asked, his expression revealing that he already knew the answer as the others behind him waited for official word. 

Gin looked down at the ground, then back at the body. 

“I can’t just let this be.” he said determinedly. “Whoever’s doing this needs to be stopped.”

John nodded with a small grin as he finished, clearly excited at the change of pace in their trip as the Kai Brothers, Smith, & Great echoed his supporting look. Kouzou, however, didn’t agree with their sentiments. 

“My pack and I can handle this.” he said, though he didn’t sound too sure of his own words. “You don’t need to stay.”

“Clearly you can’t because otherwise you would’ve figured this out already.” Kurotora snorted and the Shepherd frowned at him angrily, clearly offended.

“Kurotora, enough!” Gin said in a tone that wasn’t to be argued with.

Then he turned back to the Shepherd.

“I don’t doubt that you can, Kouzou.” he said graciously. “But I ask you to let us stay anyway, at least until this is figured out.”

Kouzou looked confused.

“With all respect, Gin.” he said. “Why do you care? You don’t even know us.”

Gin smiled slightly at him.

“We knew your brother.” he answered. “He was one of us.”

“…Which makes you and your pack our allies.” John continued before he could. “And we don’t leave our allies standing alone when there’s a fight to be had.”

Kouzou let out a snort, but his face showed nothing but admiration.

“Then I thank you once again,” he chuckled, looking at Makoto’s body seconds later. “If only we knew where to start. He never leaves them where they’re killed. He always moves them afterwards, which means that we’re going to get nothing from here.”

Gin turned slightly, stretching his legs. 

“I think for now we should rest.” he said. “It’s almost dusk, and some sleep might do us good.”

“And what if this bastard strikes again?” Kouzou asked.

“Then he’ll leave a trace behind.” Gin answered. “With our two groups combined, someone’s bound to see something.”

Then he nodded back towards the Saitama home base, and everyone followed him, none of them straying far from each other.  
  


* * *

  
Gin stretched his legs as he lay down, hearing Smith let out a loud yawn as he flopped on the ground as well nearby. This almost immediately caused a spat with Chutora, and the Akita smiled slightly, amazed that the duo still had the energy to argue after the day they’d all had. It was only a half-hearted one, though. After they had arrived back, Kouzou had shown them a place to rest in, near the caves that the Saitama pack called their home base, and had had his hunters bring them something to eat. Gin had tried to dissuade him from doing this, but the Shepherd had done it anyway, clearly wanting to make his now famous guests happy. 

Once he had taken his own advice and lay down to give his tired muscles a break though, Gin had started reminiscing back to his other friends, specifically the ones who had died in the war against Akakabuto. This didn’t do much for his mood and it didn’t take long for the young leader to begin to feel depressed. He had all but lost himself in these thoughts when someone lay down beside him. 

“Leader, are you okay?”

Glancing up in surprise, Gin saw Akame looking at him concernedly, his whole body resonating with calmness despite what they were waiting for. Gin nodded with a faint smile.

“Yeah, I’m all right.” he said. “I’m just distracted.”

“With thoughts of what?” came another voice, and suddenly John was there too, his tail swishing back and forth behind him.

Gin sighed, looking at the ground. After a moment, he answered.

“…My father.”

“What about him?” Akame asked.

“I don’t know,” Gin said, feeling slightly uncomfortable talking about it so openly. “I just…I wish I could’ve gotten the chance to know him, spend some time with him. I don’t know why I’m thinking about it now.”

“It makes sense.” the ninja-dog responded. “All we’ve seen on this trip are children who’ve lost their parents and vice versa. You just lost yours too, Gin. It’s only natural you’d think of him.”

“But why should it matter?” John said. “We all know he’d be proud of you.”

Gin smiled.

“Thanks, John.” he said gratefully. “I just wish I didn’t miss him so much.”

“Missing him just proves you cared about him, leader.” Kurotora said from a few feet away, and they realized that he had been listening in. “Trust me, I know. I miss my brother every day.”

Gin looked at him.

“Is it getting easier for you?”

Kurotora paused for a moment before answering.

“Yeah.” he finally said. “And I don’t want it to. The more you remember someone, the more they live on. At least, that’s what I believe.”

“That’s a good thing to believe.” Akame said in response and Kurotora gave a half-smile as he rested his head on his paws. 

Suddenly, they heard footsteps approaching and Gin lifted his head in curiosity right as a duo of Kouzou’s guards emerged from the trees, escorting a third dog between them. They walked straight to Kouzou immediately.

“Boss,” one of them said as the Shepherd looked up. “We caught this guy wandering through our territory. He says he wants to talk to you.”

When Kouzou looked at the newcomer, a look of surprise spread over his face. 

“Ryou!” he said, clearly caught off guard. “What are you doing here?”

The dog, a Husky, looked up at him almost sheepishly.

“Forgive me.” he said, his voice sounding to Gin like he’d lost the habit of using it. “I was just passing through. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

“I thought you were staying down by Hiroshima.” Kouzou said, standing up.

“Not anymore.” Ryou said quietly. “I ask politely if I can stay here for one night.”

Kouzou tilted his head to the side, regarding him.

“I already have guests, Ryou.” he said. “I’ll have to think about it.”

Listening to the exchange intently, Gin frowned as he looked at Ryou. He was young, the Akita decided, probably only a little younger than him, but his eyes were so tired looking and sunken in that he looked much older than he actually was. He was also very thin, Gin saw, and he found himself wondering concernedly if the young dog was ill with something. This was also what Kouzou was thinking, because seconds later, he said:

“You look awful, Ryou. Are you sick?”

“No.”

“When’s the last time you ate? You’re so thin you practically don’t exist!”

Gin could tell that the Shepherd had meant it mainly as a lighthearted tease to boost the other dog’s spirits, but Ryou didn’t react.

“I haven’t been hungry lately.” he mumbled, looking very sad. “It’s a phase, nothing more.”

Frowning a little as well, Kouzou cocked an eyebrow. Then he nodded slowly. 

“All right.” he said. “You can stay for a few nights if you need to. There’s some food over there if you want it.”

“Thank you, Kouzou-san” came the soft-voiced response, and soon Ryou was on the ground at the edge of the group, facing away from them all, his eyes shut already in sleep. 

Keeping his gaze on the Husky, Kouzou walked over to Gin, who leaned in close. 

“Who is that?” he asked as the others listened in as well.

“His name’s Ryou.” Kouzou responded. “He’s the son of the former boss dog of a neighboring pack a ways South of here.”

“Is his pack friendly?” John asked and Kouzou nodded.

“They were.” he said. “They all died a couple years ago, mostly because of humans. Ryou’s one of the few who survived. He’s been a rogue ever since.”

“You think he has something to do with these deaths?” Chutora asked from where he lay near his brother and Kouzou shook his head.

“I doubt it,” he said. “He’s a pretty normal male, even if he is kind of a loner. I’ve never seen him look this bad though.”

“No kidding.” Smith said quietly. “He looks like he hasn’t slept or eaten anything in years!”

Kouzou nodded.

“That’s why I let him stay.” he agreed. “Hopefully I can at least convince him to take care of himself a little better.”

“That would definitely be good for him.” John commented, glancing over at the silent dog’s back. 

“Even if he has nothing to do with the deaths,” Great said reasonably, “He may have heard something about them during his time as a rogue that we didn’t.”

“Maybe,” Kouzou agreed. “Good luck getting him to tell you though. Ryou’s not the talkative type.”

“I’ll see if I can get him to open up.” Gin said and stood up, walking silently over to the resting young dog as the others all watched.

When he was beside him, Ryou’s head raised quickly and Gin smiled at him disarmingly.

“Sorry,” he said kindly. “I didn’t mean to startle you. You mind if I sit here?”

Ryou glanced around, as if reassuring himself that it wasn’t a trick, and then nodded shyly. Lying on his stomach, Gin tossed a small piece of food to the other dog.

“In case you change your mind and get hungry.” he said when Ryou looked at him confusedly. “I’m Gin, leader of Ohu.”

Ryou’s eyes suddenly widened with excitement.

“You’re from Ohu?” he asked and Gin nodded.

“Yeah.” he said. “Why? Have you heard of us?”

“Who hasn’t?” Ryou said in his soft voice. “I’ve heard dozens of other dogs talk about you guys on my travels! I always kinda wanted to meet all of you. Is it true you killed that bear? Akakabuta?”

Gin laughed good-naturedly.

“Akakabuto.” he corrected. “And yes, I did. But it wasn’t just me. Everyone being there is what defeated him.”

“I’d love to see Futago Pass one day.” came the response and Gin nudged him with a paw.

“Why don’t you?” he asked. “We wouldn’t mind if you visited.”

Ryou suddenly looked nervous. 

“I…” he said, glancing up at the trees above them. “I just…can’t.”

Gin noticed this and changed track instantly.

“Ryou,” he said. “I don’t know if Kouzou told you yet, but there’s been some deaths in this area recently. As a rogue, you must hear a lot that we don’t, so…I was wondering if you’d heard anything about it.”

Ryou tensed up and Gin knew he was getting somewhere. The husky looked away from him.

“Yeah.” he said, fidgeting with a paw. “There’s been deaths down South too. I don’t even know how many. It’s not just around here.”

“Do you know what’s causing them, Ryou?” the Akita asked, trying not to sound too intimidating. 

Now the other dog looked very uncomfortable and didn’t answer, giving a small shrug that suggested he knew more than he was saying. Before Gin could say anything else though, a loud scream of pain shattered the silence. Everyone was on their feet instantly and Gin saw Kouzou’s head whip towards where it had come from. 

“This way!” he cried and leapt off after it, John, Akame, and the Kais right behind him. 

“Oh no.” Ryou moaned and Gin took note of this, but did not show that he had heard. 

“Stay here!” he yelled to everyone else. “Smith, look after them!”

“Yes, leader!” the Spaniel responded and Gin quickly caught up to them, leaping up beside John only seconds later. 

Stopping for a moment to sniff at the ground, Kouzou suddenly veered right and they almost immediately came to a halt by a large rock. Lying at the base of it was the body of a dog, one of the Saitama pack’s perimeter guards, and his throat had been torn out so completely that they could see the bone of his spine through his wound. Kouzou snarled in anger. 

“Where are you, you bastard?!” he yelled at the dark, but before anything else could happen, Gin saw Akame stiffen up.

He and John both noticed instantly.

“What is it, Akame?” John asked and the ninja-dog turned his head slightly, a look of alarm on his face. 

Then he looked at them intensely.

“It’s a diversion.” he said and then turned and darted back through the trees, yelling: “Get back to the others!”

A few hundred yards away, Smith stood staring into the darkness, looking intently in the direction Gin and the others had gone, trying to see anything unusual. Wilson was beside him and he heard the Collie say:

“Anything?”

“No.” he responded. “Which figures.”

Suddenly, he heard a growl, and turned to see one of Kouzou’s pack mates advancing on Ryou. 

“That’s it!” he was yelling. “I’ve had enough! What do you have to do with this, runt?! Spit it out!”

“You don’t understand – ” Ryou tried to say, but the dog suddenly charged and knocked him onto his back with a ‘THUD’. 

“Answer me!” he barked and Smith leapt over instantly, getting in between him and the younger dog. 

“That’s enough!” he said. “Stand down!”

“Screw you pal!” the other dog said, clearly angry and frightened. “This isn’t even your territory! Now get out of my way!”

Then he tried to push past him, but Smith stood his ground with a growl.

“I said BACK OFF!” he spat, and before the other dog, a mutt of some kind, could respond, they heard a rustle in the trees above them. 

Looking up in surprise, Smith frowned. There was no wind that could’ve caused it, and he could see nothing there once again, but then Ryou stood, and when the Spaniel looked at him, he could see that the Husky looked scared.

“Wait!” he yelled up at the branches above them. “He didn’t mean it! He’s scared, just leave him alone!”

Smith’s frown intensified at this bizarre behavior, but then there was a louder rustle. 

“HEIZO!!” Ryou screamed loudly, and suddenly something shot out of the trees right above Smith’s head. 

He heard a sickening ‘CRUNCH’ and a spray of blood hit him in the face as the mutt dropped to the ground in front of him. Then, before he knew what was happening, Smith found himself flying across the clearing, and he registered that his chest hurt like a bitch only seconds before he hit a tree hard, coming to rest on his stomach. 

“Smith!” he heard Wilson yell in alarm, but his eyes went immediately back to Ryou, and what he saw sent a chill through his whole body. 

The younger dog lay unmoving on the ground where he had been, his limpness suggesting that he had been knocked unconscious, and standing over him, his form little more than a silhouette in the dim light, stood a much larger dog. His shape appeared to be similar to that of Ryou upon first glance, but when his gaze suddenly panned over and locked with Smith’s, the Spaniel saw a pair of blazing, murderous eyes staring back at him, a cold, lifeless, calculating look emanating from every single inch of them. For a moment, Smith just stared, caught entirely off guard, but then the figure picked up Ryou in its jaws and threw him over its back, disappearing back into the trees seconds later as Smith yelled:

“Wait!”

Suddenly, though, Akame, Gin and the others who had followed Kouzou ran past him at full speed, most of them dashing immediately after the fleeing killer. Seeing the state of his friend though, Gin skidded to a halt along with Chutora. 

“Smith!” he called in concern. “Are you – ”

“I’m fine!” the Spaniel responded. “Go!”

Gin needed no more persuasion. He and Chutora immediately leapt after the others and Gin put on a burst of speed, moving quickly up to where he was level with John. Above him, he saw Akame leaping from branch to branch with astonishing grace, and before they even got 100 more feet, the ninja-dog lunged, his teeth bared as he aimed for a dark figure that Gin only noticed in that instant. He knew immediately that the hit was good though, because the killer’s figure flew sideways into a tree, a smaller form detaching from him and falling off to the side as he did. As Gin raced to catch it, doing so moments later, he saw the intruder ricochet off another tree and fly back at Akame, and soon the two dogs were locked in combat, snarling loudly as they ripped and slashed at each other in midair. Below, John and Kurotora waited for their quarry to fall so they could join in the fight, but instead it was Akame who fell to the ground, twisting at the last second to land perfectly on his paws as the attacker fled, disappearing back into the darkness of the trees. 

“That way!” Gin heard Kurotora yell and they started to run off after it.

“Wait!” he yelled at his friends, Kouzou coming up beside him. “Nobody follow him!”

They all skidded to a halt in confusion and Kurotora turned back angrily.

“Why the hell not?!” he asked, but it was Akame who answered.

“Whoever that is is highly trained.” he said intensely, panting as a few of his battle wounds seeped blood through his white fur. “We can’t afford to get separated.”

Kurotora grunted dejectedly, knowing that he was right, but then Kouzou looked down at the form on the ground with a small growl. It was Ryou, and the Shepherd glared at him.

“Let’s find out what’s going on.” he said and picked up the younger male. “Follow me.”

Gin didn’t argue, understanding the other dog’s anger, and the Ohu soldiers followed Kouzou quickly until he reached the river, and the large waterfall that was situated in the middle of it. Without warning, Kouzou suddenly leaped at the middle of the falls and disappeared through it, not emerging after he did. His voice, however, did. 

“There’s a cave behind the waterfall!” he called. “Leap through it!”

Looking at each other in surprise, Gin and the others did just that, landing on flat ground only moments later. Then they looked around. They were in a small cave, hidden from view by the rushing water, and the roar of the waterfall over the entrance dissuaded anyone who might have wanted to listen in from outside. Gin nodded in approval.

“This is perfect.” he said, seeing John nod in agreement beside him. 

Kouzou nodded as well.

“I come here sometimes to think.” he said simply, then turned and nudged Ryou’s still form with his paw. 

After a few seconds, the Husky let out a moan, and then his eyes opened slowly. Almost immediately, his head shot up in alarm, but Gin and Kouzou held him down with their paws so he couldn’t stand. 

“Relax.” Gin said. “You’re safe.”

“For the moment, anyway.” Kouzou said, clearly not happy. “But that can change very quickly, Ryou…if you don’t tell me what the fuck is going on in my territory.”

The Husky looked down at the stone floor, his face almost ashamed.

“I-It’s a long story.” he said and John growled slightly.

“Shorten it.” he said bluntly. “And tell us anyway.”

Ryou looked up and studied them for a moment, then nodded slowly, looking tired and defeated. Kouzou stepped up to him. 

“First of all,” he said. “Who the hell is **that** , and why is he killing my dogs?”

He nodded outside when he said it, and Ryou met his gaze.

“His name is Heizo.” he said quietly. “And he was…doing it for me. He killed them because of me.”

Akame gave a start as soon as he said it.

“Heizo?” he said, sounding almost incredulous. “As in Heizo the assassin?!”

Ryou nodded without looking at him and Gin looked over at his friend.

“Who is he, Akame?” he asked and the ninja-dog looked at him.

“He’s one of the most talented assassin dogs in all of Japan.” he said with a frown. “My clan and I had to deal with him a few times during the war against Koga. But how do **you** know him, kid?”

Ryou clenched his eyes shut. Then after a moment, he looked up at Akame.

“I know him because he killed my parents.” he said softly.

For a moment, there was silence in the cave, only the sound of the waterfall breaking it. Then Kouzou looked down at him in shock, his anger gone.

“He killed your parents?” he repeated. “Are you sure, Ryou?”

“I watched him do it.” came the answer and Gin lay down in front of him so that they were on eye level.

“Then why is he here now?” he asked. “And why is he following you?”

Ryou sighed, a lone tear sliding unnoticed down his furred cheek. He looked at the Akita.

“I wish I knew.” he said miserably. “Ever since that day…when they died…he hasn’t left me alone. He’s followed me from one end of this country to the other and nothing I say or do can get him to leave. I can’t understand it. Even when he kills these other dogs, it’s always only the ones who quarrel with **me** …or fight with me or hurt me. Even when it’s only a misunderstanding, he’ll kill them…before I can say anything.”

He looked at Kouzou.

“That’s why I’m always alone.” he said. “Because I don’t want people to get hurt.”

Gin looked at him sympathetically, suddenly feeling very sorry for him, but John cocked his head to the side and looked almost angry.

“Have you tried fighting him off?” he asked, sounding slightly disapproving. “Standing up for yourself?”

Ryou looked at him hatefully.

“3 times.” he answered with a small growl. “He always just dodges everything and refuses to hit me back. My dad never taught me how to fight…no one did. So you tell me: he’s a professional assassin. What kind of chance do you think a dog like me has against him in a fight?”

John didn’t answer, knowing that the younger dog had a point, and Gin jumped in, hoping to end an argument before it started.

“But why is he so interested in you?” he wondered aloud again and then suddenly Akame sat down beside him, regarding the Husky thoughtfully. 

“I might have an idea.” he said. “But it’s just a theory.”

All heads turned towards him.

“It’s all we have right now Akame, so spit it out.” Kurotora said from behind him and the ninja-dog kept his eyes on Ryou. 

“Heizo’s a husky too.” he said. “In fact, kid, you look a lot like him.”

Ryou looked surprised, and Gin frowned as he looked at his friend.

“You think it’s a bond between the breed?” he asked skeptically and Akame turned to him.

“No.” he said. “I think Heizo sees himself in Ryou. That’s why he hasn’t killed him. From what Ryou has told us, it sounds like he’s trying to protect him.”

This seemed to further confuse the others, and Chutora stepped forward from the back of the group. 

“But he’s an assassin.” he said. “That makes it sound like he has feelings for the kid.”

“So?” Kouzou said, a little more harshly than he’d meant.

“So,” the Kai dog continued irritatedly. “Assassins don’t have feelings. They’re cold bastards. That’s the only way they can do their jobs, especially the good ones.”

“They’re still dogs.” Akame said in response. “Even the ones that are real monsters like Heizo.”

“So how do we catch this fucker?” John growled, sounding eager to fight. 

For a minute, there was silence as everyone thought about it. Then a shy sounding voice broke the quiet.

“We use a lure.”

The group looked down at Ryou in surprise and when he looked up, they saw a determination in his eyes that none of them had seen there before. 

“I can get him to come out.” he said and Kouzou looked at him in concern.

“Ryou, that’s putting yourself directly in harm’s way.” he said. “Are you sure about this?”

The husky looked at him.

“I won’t go the rest of my life with Heizo stalking me everywhere I go.” he growled. “If this will make him leave, then I’ll do it. And with all of you here, it might just work.”

After a second, Kouzou nodded, understanding his feelings, and John grinned slightly.

“Well said, kid!” he said. “You may be a soldier yet.”

Ryou smiled despite himself and Gin stood up. 

“All right, everyone.” he said in a commanding voice. “Here’s what we’ll do…”  
  


* * *

  
The mood of the group was tense as they walked, every one of them glancing around themselves to look for movement without making it too obvious that they were waiting for something. They moved in a circle as they headed into the forest away from the river, leaving no side unprotected as Ryou walked right in the center of it, keeping his gaze on the ground as his ears twitched back and forth, listening carefully to every sound that entered them. None of them said a word, but then suddenly, Ryou stopped in his tracks, freezing up completely. Gin did the same and glanced at him without moving his head. 

“Is it him?” he asked in a quiet voice and Ryou nodded without looking at him.

“Yeah.” he said. “He’s here.”

Suddenly, a shape burst out of the trees above them and landed on its feet about 15 feet away, facing them as it did. John and Kouzou immediately pushed Ryou to the ground and stood over him as Gin stepped to the front of the group with Akame at his side. He glared angrily at the figure and watched as the figure glared right back. It was Heizo. As he looked at him, Gin saw that Akame had been right. The older Husky did indeed look almost identical to Ryou, and except for the numerous scars that adorned his powerful form, he could’ve been his older brother. Heizo took a step forward.

“That kid is mine.” he said, his voice low and deadly sounding.

“ _That kid_ ,” Gin responded with equal power. “Is under the protection of the Ohu Army. He doesn’t belong to you.”

The assassin’s eyes narrowed.

“This doesn’t concern you.” he hissed. “Give him back or I’ll kill you all and they’ll never find your corpses.”

John and Kurotora growled.

“We’re not like the other dogs you’ve faced, bastard.” the Shepherd said in a voice that wasn’t to be argued with. “Underestimate us, and it’s the end of the road for you.”

Heizo stretched his neck, looking angry as he glared right at Ryou.

“I protected you, you ungrateful little runt.” he growled. “And this is how you repay me.”

Ryou shot to his feet with a snarl, suddenly showing more power than he ever had before.

“All you ever cared about was lessening your own guilt!” he spat as Akame and Kurotora held him back. “You killed **everyone** I came across, friend or foe, just so you could live with yourself after killing my mom and dad! Don’t you **dare** make this my fault!”

“So…” came the response. “That’s how it’s going to be, is it?”

No one responded and suddenly, before anyone could react, Heizo shot back up into the trees with fearsome speed and Gin and the others immediately leapt into action. 

“Kouzou!” he shouted. “Get Ryou back to Smith and the others! We’ll deal with him!”

“Got it!” the Shepherd shouted back, but Gin and his companions were already on Heizo’s tail.

Akame and Gin matched the assassin’s speed easily as they entered the trees as well, leaping from branch to branch and keeping him in their sights as John and the Kai brothers stayed on the ground, making sure that he didn’t escape that way. None of them could get close enough to attack him though, and the chase continued as it was, neither side gaining any ground. Suddenly, though, they reached the river once more, and they realized that it had looped around from where they had been and now cut off their path. Seeing Heizo come to a halt abruptly, Gin watched as he leapt sideways and vanished into the trees in front of him. Nodding quickly at Akame, the two friends jumped to the ground and landed next to John, looking up as they realized that the assassin was trapped in the treetops, unable to move without being seen. They glared into the darkness carefully.

“You didn’t plan any of this, did you?” Gin growled to the unseen killer. “You never meant to become that kid’s protector. You were just there to kill his parents that day!”

No one answered and the Akita continued.

“But something went wrong, didn’t it, Heizo?” he said. “The killing itself went perfectly until you discovered that one minor detail you’d overlooked…they had a son.”

“And he saw you, didn’t he?” Akame chimed in, continuing to look for movement amongst the trees. “He saw what you did and you couldn’t kill him, because you were reminded of yourself when you were young.”

There was no still answer.

“You know we’re right, Heizo.” Gin called. “Don’t try to hide from it, from us.”

After a moment, there was finally a response.

“He wasn’t supposed to be there!” came Heizo’s voice and all of their heads whipped in the direction it had come from. “The dogs who hired me told me that his parents were newly mated, that they had no children. I didn’t know what to do!”

“So you decided to atone for what you’d done by becoming his guardian?” Gin said, noticing the slight change in tone in the assassin’s voice.

“Except you did it **too** well didn’t you?” John finally added. “You protected him so completely that you denied him the chance to have a life of his own. Think about it, Heizo! That kid is growing up. How’s he ever going to become a real male if all you do is fight his battles for him?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“So what was your plan then?” Akame asked pointedly. “To follow him around his whole life, killing anyone he quarreled with, anyone who looked at him the wrong way? You had to know that sooner or later it would come to an end!”

“He’s all I have left!” the assassin growled back. “And if you want him for yourself, you’ll have to kill me!”

“Oh, we will.” Gin said. “I don’t want to Heizo, I really don’t. I’m hoping you’ll see reason and surrender. But your protection is terrorizing him. If you go near him again, we’ll have no choice.”

“The only one with no choice is me, Gin.” Heizo said and Gin was momentarily startled by the use of his name. 

Suddenly, though, Heizo emerged from the tree in front of them like a bullet, lunging directly at him, teeth bared and ready to fight. Gin, however, was not famous for his speed without reason. Darting sideways out of the way, he grabbed the assassin’s hind leg in his teeth and threw him at Kurotora, who tried to get his jaws around his throat. Heizo twisted in midair and avoided it though, and soon, the Kai dog was on the ground on his back, a fresh slash across his chest. Chutora tried to jump to his brother’s aid, but achieved the same result, and Heizo leapt back to get some distance on his opponents. Then John was there. The two dogs bit at each other’s faces and necks fast and hard, and the sound of their snaps on empty air were broken only by their chorus of snarls. While they fought, Akame managed to grab the assassin by the back of the neck and slam him into the ground with bone crushing force, momentarily stunning him. 

Heizo quickly leapt to his paws again, though, dodging a bite from Gin, and leveled the ninja-dog with a hind leg kick to the jaw. When John and Kurotora came to his rescue, he traded blows with both of them, each of them grunting as blood flew through the air at the impact points. Then Gin saw his chance. As Heizo tried to take to the air again, he lunged from below and went straight for the assassin’s throat. Seeing this, Heizo twisted and smacked him hard across the face with his paw, making the Akita suddenly taste fresh blood in his mouth, but he smacked it aside and powered right through it, finding his mark seconds later. Feeling the flesh of the Husky’s throat between his jaws, Gin bit down hard and twisted himself, making his body spin fast and turning his fangs into even deadlier weapons then before. Blood spattered out and Heizo let out an involuntary whine of pain and surprise as the Akita’s teeth found his jugular and severed it cleanly, ending the assassin’s reign of terror…and his life. Seconds later, the two landed with simultaneous, painful ‘THUD’s, and Gin quickly tore himself free of his opponent, leaping back next to John and Akame to survey his work. 

“Well done, leader!” Kurotora said, licking his lips. “He got what he deserved!”

“I warned him.” Gin said, not looking quite as thrilled at his actions. “I told him not to attack.”

“And he disobeyed.” Akame said, looking at him reassuringly. “You did what needed to be done Gin. And this territory’s a safer place for it.”

“Besides,” John said, agreeing with the ninja-dog. “Now Ryou can have his life back, finally.”

Gin nodded at that thought and smiled at his two friends gratefully. 

“Let’s go tell him then.” he said, and they turned and walked away, leaving Heizo the assassin lying where he’d fallen.   
  


* * *

  
“You’re sure?” Kouzou asked, facing the warriors of Ohu as they stood across from him in the clearing by their base caves. “He’s really dead?”

Gin nodded.

“I had no choice.” he said. “He attacked us rather than surrender.”

“I’m not blaming you.” Kouzou said. “You’ve done us a great favor. More lives could’ve been lost if he wasn’t stopped, including more of my pack mates. My pack and I are in your debt.”

“Consider us even.” Gin said with a smile, thinking of the Shepherd’s dead brother Saito. 

Then he nodded over his shoulder back at the forest.

“We left his body back there by the river.” the Akita said, “You should probably give him a proper burial at some point.”

“We will.” Kouzou said. “Thank you.”

Beside him, Ryou was looking like he didn’t quite believe it.

“He’s…gone?” he said with a small, incredulous laugh. “I…I…”

“Now you can become the male you were meant to be,” John told him with a slightly teasing grin. “And actually talk to people for a change.”

Ryou smiled back at him, looking like he didn’t quite know how to express how grateful he was. 

“I…” he said again, then gave up trying. “Thank you, so much!”

“What’s to become of you now?” Gin asked, turning to the Husky. “Back to wandering?”

“Actually,” Ryou said. “Kouzou’s offered to let me join his pack. At least until I can take care of myself a little better.”

“Hey,” the Shepherd smiled, his tongue lolling out the side of his muzzle. “With a little work, Ryou, I think can lead your own pack one day.”

They all laughed and Akame turned to Gin.

“We should go, leader.” he said and Gin nodded, looking at the two of them one more time.

“Good luck to you both.” he said to them. “If you ever need our help again, just let us know.”

Kouzou nodded, happy with the way it had all gone, and then watched as the warriors of Ohu turned and walked away, each of them looking every bit like their reputations as they disappeared through the trees. Then the Shepherd turned to Ryou, who was looking after them with intense admiration, and smiled at him.

“Come on, Ryou.” he said. “It’s time you trained a little. Let’s get started.”


	2. Story 2 - The Protector

“Let’s move it!” the heavily scarred Greyhound called as he ran into the canyon entrance. “We’ll make quick work of these bastards!”

The dogs that followed him gave a shout of support and pretty soon the whole army of them had gone a good distance into the narrow ravine. Overhead, he saw one of the human’s flying machines roar by and begin circling, but it didn’t concern him. After all, there were bigger pursuits to worry about at the moment. As soon as they got a little ways in, the whole group of them came to a halt, their growls echoing off the canyon’s rocky walls. On the other side of the gorge, facing them, was another large pack of dogs, over 100 strong, all of them looking equally as bloodthirsty and ready to fight as the Greyhound and his pack were. This was what they were here for. For a minute, they all snarled at each other, shouting curses across the distance as they did. Then the other pack’s leader, a Pit Bull mix, stepped forward challengingly. 

“This is my territory to claim!” he yelled. “Get out of here unless you want us to rip you apart here and now!”

“You couldn’t kill us if you tried!” the Greyhound spat. “This territory is **ours** for the taking! After we kill you, we’ll make quick work of the weak pack that lives here already and then all this will be **mine**!”

“Bring it, bitch!” the Pit Bull snarled back. “I’ve defeated dogs that make you look like a 5 day old whelp! I’m grateful to the dog who told us about this place! You and your little band don’t stand a chance in here!”

The Greyhound looked startled through his rage as he licked his lips. 

“The dog who told you?” he said. “Feh. I’ll bet he didn’t tell you everything. Our informant was more forthcoming. Apparently, no one ever comes up here. They’ll never find what’s left of you when we’re done!” 

The Pit Bull dropped into a battle stance. 

“Don’t count on it, bastard!” he growled. “We’ll kill you all! Attack!”

And with that, the whole group charged, howling battle cries as they ran at their enemies. The Greyhound’s group did the same, and they all readied their fangs to be stained with blood. As he ran, he saw the Pit Bull coming closer and closer. 20 feet. 15 feet. 10 feet. Suddenly, when they were almost close enough to sink their teeth into one another, something fell from up above, landing with a loud ‘THUD’ right in between them. Skidding to a halt, the Greyhound looked at it in angry surprise, hearing everyone else around him on both sides stop to do the same. It was a large boulder, and as they looked at it, a low, malevolent laugh suddenly echoed through the canyon, seeming to grow louder with each passing second. The Greyhound looked around in irritation.

“What the fuck?” he said, not seeing anything unusual. 

“Up here.” came a voice, and everyone looked towards its source. 

Standing up on the top of the canyon’s walls was a large dog, his figure appearing as just a black shadow with the morning sun behind him. As he saw and then looked at him, the Greyhound squinted. 

“Who the hell are you?!” he snapped. “What do you want?!”

“Sorry about the rock,” the figure said, his voice dripping with smugness. “My foot slipped. I just wanted to see if you were all actually stupid enough to have listened to me and come here.”

The Greyhound let out a grunt of surprise, but the Pit Bull leader suddenly stepped forward. 

“You!” he said, sounding furious. “You’re the one who told us about this place! You told them too?! You traitor! When I’m done with them, you’re a dead dog!”

The dog on the cliff let out a snorting laugh.

“I highly doubt that.” he said. “But feel free to continue your battle if you want. We can wait a while. Can’t we guys?”

Suddenly, as if appearing out of thin air, other figures began stepping up to the canyon wall’s edge as well, groups of them appearing at once until the entire edge of both sides was lined with them. The Greyhound dropped back into a battle stance as his group and the opposing group turned their attentions to the mysterious newcomers. 

“You think you can defeat us?” he growled up at them. “We still have twice your numbers you idiots! Get out of here now or you’re next!”

“Didn’t you wonder,” the dog said in a low, triumphant-sounding voice, ignoring him. “ **Why** no one ever comes near this canyon?”

The Greyhound didn’t answer and the figure cocked his head. 

“No?” he said, then smiled. “Well then, stick around. The answer might just fall out of the sky.”

Then the dog and all his companions turned and disappeared from view, the sound of their snickering laughter vanishing with them as the glaring rays of the sun still masked their features, obscuring their real identities to the dogs below. As they watched after them uneasily, one of the Greyhound’s subordinates turned to him.

“What now, boss?” he asked. 

“I’ll tell you what now!” the Pit Bull suddenly yelled and turning fast, grabbed him by the throat. 

Then he jerked his head back with a wet ripping sound and a jet of blood shot out of the subordinate’s neck, spattering onto the others nearby. As the dog fell down with a choking whine, snarls erupted from everyone else there, and soon the two groups had launched themselves at each other, resuming the battle in a symphony of snapping jaws and ripping flesh. In the midst of it all, the Greyhound and the Pit Bull pulled each other to the ground, slicing bloody slashes in each other as they did. Then the Greyhound knocked the Pit Bull flat onto his back, though, and got his jaws around his neck firmly, positioning himself perfectly for the kill. No sooner had he done this then a noise began to come to his ears, even over the sounds of the fighting. It was a low rumbling sound, and as the Greyhound looked up, the Pit Bull’s neck still between his jaws, he froze. Diving quickly towards the ground, it’s path making it head right for the canyon, was the human flying machine from earlier. Momentarily caught off guard, he could only watch as the mechanical monster pulled up at last second, making it go directly over the top of the ravine, and the Greyhound saw objects begin coming out of the bottom of it and falling directly into the canyon where they were. The moment they had, his danger senses went wild, but he didn’t have a chance to do anything more, as suddenly there was a blinding light, and unbearable pain shot through his whole body. Then the world went black. 

Up on the cliff side a short distance away, the dog who had led both groups there watched the events unfold gleefully with his pack, all of them lowering their heads a little to muffle the sound of the explosions coming from the canyon. There were 5 of them in all, and as soon as they happened, the flying machine flew away, banking and disappearing over the mountain back the way it came. Then, body parts began raining down on them, and the dogs began to laugh, their eyes transfixed by the flames now burning where over 200 fellow dogs had just been moments before. Suddenly, a severed head landed only feet away from where the leader of the group stood, and he swiveled his own head towards it. Immediately, he realized that it was the head of the Greyhound pack leader, it’s eyes staring straight ahead in shock and it’s expression one of intense pain. As more laughter sounded around him, the leader walked up and put his paw on it, turning it so the face was facing him. Once it was, the smug smile from before returned to his muzzle. 

“Boy…” he smirked. “You sure showed me. But don’t let it depress you, pal. I think you’ve learned an important lesson from all this.”

He leaned in close to the head’s single remaining ear and whispered tauntingly:

“We shouldn’t try to take what doesn’t belong to us.” 

Then the leader gave the Greyhound’s severed head a wink and turning around, kicked it back into the canyon with his hind leg, all of them hearing a series of faint ‘THUD’s as it landed back where it had started. Once it had, the leader walked back to his subordinates, and the group of them ran quickly away from the canyon, unseen by anyone, leaving nothing but silence in their wake.  
  


* * *

  
Akame scanned the landscape ahead as Gin, John and the others began to catch up behind him. They were approaching the Ibaraki prefecture, and after the debacle in Saitama, Akame was being a little more careful. They had never had much contact with the pack that lived here, but the clan’s representative during the battle against Akakabuto, a Malamute named Don, had been a valuable ally of theirs. Unlike Saito of Saitama, who had died quickly in one hit, Don had been one of the chief fighters in the battle against Madara and his subordinate bears. He had been one of the ones distracting the monstrous bear while Akame and Gin had made it to a nearby tree with a spear-like branch and had gotten into position to end the battle, and Madara’s life. Don had been killed a short time later though, during the battle against Akakabuto himself, while rushing to help protect Ben from the killer bear’s claws, and had been torn nearly in half while doing so. With all that had been happening at the time, though, the group hadn’t even noticed that he had died, and didn’t find out until afterwards when they were taking a head count and their allies were going back to their own territories. They knew that Don’s brother Riley had taken leadership of the pack, or so a group of dogs they had encountered along the way had told them, but other than that, they knew little about what to expect. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, Akame leaped down off his perch, landing with a grunt in front of John. From beside the German Shepherd, Gin looked at him. 

“Anything the matter, Akame?” he asked.

“Nothing, leader.” the ninja-dog responded. “All quiet. We should be approaching their territory any minute now.”

“We should be on our guard then.” John said. “We don’t want any more run-ins with unexpected company.”

Gin nodded in agreement, but Akame could see that it was half-hearted. 

“Yeah,” he said. “We should be ready for anything.”

Akame nodded as well, then turned and fell in beside the Akita, seeing Smith back off a little to give him some room. Gin had been a little somber over the last few days, which was the amount of time it had taken them to travel from Saitama to Ibaraki, and Akame suspected he knew why. Heizo… Gin had acted professionally and had performed, at least in Akame’s estimation, the only reasonable course of action in stopping the crazed assassin only days ago. The Kishu had been able to tell simply from the dog’s behavior that he had been delusional, and given how long it had apparently been going on, challenging that delusion could’ve made him even more violent, which would’ve made things far worse. Despite this, Gin had clearly begun feeling a late blooming sense of guilt over having to kill the other dog, and Akame had only realized right there that the young leader had never had to kill another of his own kind before in his life. He had tried to talk to him about it the other night, but Gin had been very tired and Akame had decided to drop the subject until a better chance presented itself. Either way, he had decided, the Akita needed some support to help him get his mind back to where it needed to be, especially seeing as they had many more condolences to give. 

Cresting a hill, they came to a stop. The Ibaraki pack’s territory lay in front of them, and the scattered forests and rolling hills made for a surprisingly impressive landscape. It would’ve been almost a mini version of Ohu had it not been for it’s location. The prefecture was directly in the middle of the route that traveling dog packs took to get from Northern to Southern Japan and vice versa, and given the nearby mountains and the presence of humans not too far away, they had to go directly through it to ensure the safest route. That meant that whoever lived here had to deal with all kinds of strange dogs throughout the year, some good and some very bad. So far though, it appeared that the Ibarakis had done a fair job of protecting their home, and Akame had never heard of any wars taking place down in this area. Suddenly, the ninja-dog’s senses went wild and he stopped dead in his tracks, holding his leg out to stop Gin as well. The Akita looked confused as soon as he did it.

“What is it?” he asked, but Akame didn’t even get the chance to answer.

At that moment, a group of dogs leapt up in front of them, having been lying concealed in the tall grass of the hill they were walking on. Dropping immediately into a fighting stance, Akame felt Kurotora and Great leap up beside him, John and Smith standing on Gin’s other side as they got ready to protect him. Chutora and Wilson, meanwhile, covered the rear. For their part, the dogs in front of them only growled lightly, and seemed rather to be studying them then moving to attack. Then one of them stepped forward. 

“State your name and your business here.” he said and Akame was a little surprised to hear the youth in his voice.

Gin stepped forward.

“I’m Gin of Ohu.” he said, bowing his head in greeting. “And these are my pack mates. We’re looking for Riley of Ibaraki.”

The lead dog looked surprised and Akame saw that he was a Malamute like both Don and Riley.

“Ohu?!” he exclaimed, “Why are **you** here?”

“There’s something we need to discuss with Riley?” Gin answered. “Do you know him?”

The dog nodded.

“Riley’s my father.” he said, looking back and forth between Gin and the rest of them. “My name is James. But what do you want with him?”

“That’s…something I think we should tell him in person.” Gin said and James cocked his head slightly, as if ensuring that he could trust him. 

“All right,” he said finally. “Follow me. I’ll take you to him.”

“Thank you.” Gin said and the group of them fell in behind James as he and his subordinates turned and walked quickly in the direction the Ohu Army had been heading already.  
  


* * *

  
Riley clenched his eyes shut, the bad news that had just been delivered beginning to sink in. 

“God damn it, Don…” he said, his eyes tearing up a little as James’s did the same beside him. “I was afraid of this.”

“We’re very sorry for your loss.” Gin said for what seemed already like the trillionth time. “It’s my fault. Your brother was trying to help me and one of my pack mates. We owe him a great debt.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t your fault.” Riley answered and Akame saw Gin pause. “My brother was always kind of rash. He rushed into things all the time. Either way, I’m sure he was proud to fight alongside you all.”

“Thank you.” Gin answered, inclining his head appreciatively.

Then James stepped forward, looking even sadder than his father.

“Where is he buried?” he asked and John looked at him from Gin’s side.

“Up in Futago Pass in Ohu with most of the other dead.” he said and Gin nodded.

“You’re free to come pay your respects to your Uncle whenever you want.” he said and the younger Malamute nodded gratefully at him, stepping back beside Riley.

“What’s going on?” came a new voice, and everyone turned to see where it had come from. 

Another Malamute had stepped out of the trees to their right, Akame saw, and this one looked very similar to James, though slightly older and a tad darker in the fur. His light-brown eyes had black diamond-shaped markings around them, and seemed to somehow give him the look of being intelligent beyond his years. Riley lowered his head a little as he saw him. 

“This is Gin of Ohu and his clan.” he said, then turned to them and said. “This is Zach, my oldest son and heir.”

Gin and the others nodded at the newcomer and Zach in turn nodded back, giving them a friendly smile. 

“It’s an honor.” he said, then repeated. “But what’s going on?”

“It’s…It’s your uncle, Zach.” Riley said somberly. “He’s dead.”

To Akame’s surprise, Zach barely reacted at all to this. For a few moments, he just stood there, as if taking it in. Then he sighed deeply, looking at the ground.

“How did it happen?” he asked calmly and Gin looked at him.

“The demon bear Akakabuto killed him.” he said, and John quickly added:

“But we returned the favor. Your uncle got the justice he deserved.”

Zach’s smile returned at this, though it seemed strangely forced to Akame.

“I’m glad.” he said. “Now he can rest in peace.”

Then he turned to Riley.

“I’m going back out on patrol, Dad,” he said. “Just in case ‘Mastermind’ and his little band decide to take advantage of this and do something. You know they’ll find out about it sooner or later.”

“That’s a good idea.” the older Malamute said, looking troubled by this thought. “Why don’t you escort Gin and his pack to the Southern border to make sure they get there safely.”

Then he gave Gin a slightly apologetic glance.

“Assuming you’re leaving immediately that is.” he said. “Don’t feel as if you have to.”

“That’s all right.” Gin responded. “We’ve got a long way to go anyway. If I might ask, though, what were you talking about? Who’s ‘Mastermind’?”

The question was directed at Zach, but it was James who answered.

“That’s a good question.” he said and Gin looked confused. 

“He’s a rogue pack leader that’s taken up residence in our territory.” Riley said before James could elaborate. “Other than that we don’t know much about him. Either way, he’s no one you need to concern yourself with, Gin.”

“‘Don’t know much’ in this case meaning ‘practically nothing’.” James quipped. “He’s vicious though. That much we’re sure of.”

“Normally we just drive off any intruders that enter our territory without permission or try and cause trouble.” Zach jumped in. “With him though, it’s different. He and his clan moved into our territory but haven’t made any moves against us. On the contrary, he’s been helping us drive off other packs of rogues. Not that his methods impress me much.”

“What do you mean?” Smith asked and the dog’s gaze panned to him.

“He may not touch us,” Zach said, looking disapproving. “But he’s brutal to any invading dogs. He likes leading them into situations where they’ll get themselves killed and if that doesn’t work, he’ll go and finish them off himself. That’s why the local dogs nicknamed him ‘The Mastermind’. He’s pretty much been called that ever since. He’s kind of a bastard.”

“It’s like he gets a kick out of it.” James said. “And the best part is, he’s so secretive that we have no idea who he is. That’s why everyone calls him by his nickname, ‘cause no one knows his real one. We’ve seen his pack a bunch of times, but him…never.”

“You sound impressed with him.” John observed, raising an eyebrow at the younger brother and James reddened a little, glancing nervously at his father.

“Well…” he said, “I wouldn’t say ‘impressed’. More ‘interested in’.”

“Do you need any help with him?” Kurotora asked Riley and the Malamute shook his head.

“Like my son said,” he responded. “He doesn’t bother us. He also doesn’t hurt any local dogs who have nothing to do with our quarrels. Thanks for your offer, but he’s no threat to us right now.”

“Very well,” Gin said, nodding at him. “We should be going. Sorry once again for the loss of your brother.”

“Thank you, Gin.” Riley said. “We appreciate you telling us in person.”

Then he nodded at Zach and the younger Malamute walked up to Gin and the others, pausing and gesturing with his head.

“Follow me.” he said and they fell in behind him, allowing him to lead them South once more, towards the opposite border of the territory. 

For a while, they walked quietly, the silence being broken by the occasional chatter between Smith and the Kai brothers in the back of the group. Gin had attempted to engage Zach in brief conversations about the area, and the Malamute had obliged with a slightly flattered look, asking them about Ohu in return, a question that John had responded to in a proud sounding voice. Akame had not joined in these exchanges. He stared at Zach’s back. Despite his normalcy, something felt off about him, and Akame’s finely tuned ninja-dog senses had been acting up ever since the elder Malamute brother had made his presence known. He wasn’t sure why. After all, Zach seemed like a nice enough kid. Maybe it was the nonchalant way he had reacted to the news of his uncle’s death that gave Akame pause. Or maybe it was just the stress of their mission finally getting to him a little. Either way, he felt as if he needed to think about it some more before joining in in any major discussions with the Malamute. Suddenly, their guide came to a stop. He pointed with his muzzle.

“If you head that way, you should be able to leave our territory without any trouble.” he said. “I think you’re fine either way, but it’s best to be careful.”

“Agreed.” Gin said and Smith said: “Thanks.” from behind him.

Zach nodded, then gestured over his head to a set of higher hills and mountains to their left. 

“Just as a word of warning, though.” he said. “Stay away from the canyons over there in those hills. The humans test their weapons in them sometimes, and not just their guns. It’s a dangerous place, especially if you don’t know your way around.”

“Very well,” Gin said. “Thanks for your concern.”

Zach nodded at them and then, after bidding them farewell and good luck, turned and left. Immediately, Kurotora turned to Gin.

“What’s the next territory, leader?” he asked.

“Hmm. We should probably – ” Gin started, but then Akame interrupted.

“If I may, Gin,” he said. “I’d like to check out something here first.”

Gin looked surprised.

“Of course, Akame.” he said, “But what?”

After pausing for a minute, Akame nodded over at the hills with the canyons. John turned to him seconds later.

“Zach just told us they were unsafe.” he frowned. “What’s so interesting about them?”

“I just want to see something.”

“Do you not trust him?” Gin asked, looking a little concerned and Akame looked away.

“I don’t know,” he said truthfully. “I just have this overwhelming feeling that something is wrong in this territory. I wanted to see if I was right.”

Gin nodded almost immediately.

“I trust your judgment, Akame.” he said graciously. “Let’s go.”

“Let’s be quick though.” Chutora said nervously. “I’d rather **not** get shot.”

“What’s the matter, Tora?” Smith teased. “Do the big, bad humans scare you?”

The Kai dog turned and snapped at him with his jaws and the Spaniel jumped aside with a laugh, Kurotora joining in as Great grinned next to him. Normally, Akame would’ve smiled good-naturedly at this too, but at the moment, he was in full ninja-dog mode and led the group quickly to the canyons at Gin and John’s sides. Once they got there, everyone had quieted down significantly. The ravine’s high walls loomed over them menacingly, and everyone immediately began to feel uneasy just being there. Sniffing at the ground, John looked up with a small growl at his companions. 

“You were right, Akame,” he said. “Something’s not right here. I smell blood all over the place.”

“I’m getting some really bad vibes from this place. I think something seriously bad happened here.” Smith added, looking around as they entered the canyon’s entrance.

“And I know what it was.” Wilson’s voice said and the group nearly ran into him, stopped in the middle of the trail. 

When they followed his gaze, the whole group of them went dead silent. In front of them was a bloodbath. The stone walls of the canyon were so covered with blood that they were practically painted red from top to bottom, and canine body parts of all shapes and sizes littered the ground as far as they could see. For a minute, no one said a word, then Kurotora’s voice broke the quiet.

“Holy hell…” he said, clearly horrified. “What the fuck happened here?!”

“It looks like the humans happened here.” Great said intensely. “I can see scorch marks from their weapons on the rocks.”

“Zach said they test them up here.” Smith pointed out, but Akame shook his head, glancing at his friend.

“This many dogs wouldn’t come anywhere near this place if that happened regularly.” he said reasonably. “And this is too far in to just stumble across. They had to have been lured here…deliberately.”

“I find it hard to believe that Riley and his pack didn’t know about this, Gin.” John said as he turned to the Akita. “These bodies look at least a few days old.”

“I agree.” Wilson said. “Maybe we should go back.”

Gin nodded, looking simultaneously shocked and determined.

“We **are** going back.” he said. “This shouldn’t happen **anywhere**. I want some answers.”

And with that, the Ohu group turned around and headed back for the Ibaraki pack’s home base, Akame and Gin leading the way.  
  


* * *

  
“What are you talking about?” Riley frowned, looking at them in shock as the daylight behind him began to dim. “What bodies?”

“In the canyons on the border of your territory” Kurotora replied intensely. “There were more corpses than we could count!”

“This happened on **your** land!” John said in an accusing voice. “How could you not have known about it?”

“I don’t know **everything** that happens in my territory!” Riley said defensively as Gin gave John a warning glare about his temper. “I haven’t been leader for long enough to get the process down yet. And besides, we told you about Mastermind. This sounds exactly like the sort of thing he’d do.”

“Where are your sons?” Akame asked, meeting his gaze. “Maybe they know something.”

“Their both out on patrol.” the Malamute answered in an irritated voice. “And don’t go harassing them about this!”

“We mean no disrespect, Riley.” Gin said in a quieter voice, calming everyone down. “It’s just…it was pretty horrifying. I’d like to get to the bottom of it.”

Riley lowered his head a little, quieting down as well.

“All right.” he said. “Of course. If Mastermind has gotten **that** out of control, then your help might be invaluable in putting a stop to him. You can stay.”

“Thank you.” Gin said and glared at Kurotora and John, both of whom looked ready to open their mouths accusingly again. 

It was then that Akame heard a new sound, and his ears perked up immediately as he turned his head towards it. Gin noticed instantly.

“What is it, Akame?” he asked and the ninja-dog shushed him. 

Listening more closely, he heard faint whimpers and growls coming from the west, the telltale signs of a battle in progress. 

“A fight.” he said. “This way!”

They immediately followed him in the direction of the noises and Gin turned to Riley, who had gone with them as well.

“Are either of your sons in this direction?” he asked and Riley shook his head, looking anxious at the thought.

“Who knows?” he said. “It could be either one of them, or neither. When they’re out on patrol with their platoons, they disappear for hours, sometimes days. So your guess is as good as mine.”

Gin nodded, deciding not to press the matter as Akame increased his speed and the sounds got louder. Suddenly, as they came to a clearing in the trees, they nearly ran into a group of dogs directly in their path. Skidding to a halt, they looked at each of them in turn before Riley stepped forward. 

“Ikiru,” he said, addressing one of the dogs. “What’s going on? Where’s James?”

“Mastermind’s cornered an invading pack by the cliff over there sir,” the floppy-eared mutt responded. “James-san went to flank around the back to surprise him.”

“Then why are you here?”

“We’re on standby in case reinforcements are needed, Riley-sama”

At that moment, James suddenly burst through the trees in front of them, panting heavily, and ran right up to Ikiru. 

“Let’s go!” he said. “They’re – ”

Then he paused, noticing the newcomers.

“Dad?” he said. “Gin-san, what are you doing here?”

“What’s going on?” Gin asked, ignoring the question and stepping up to the younger dog’s side. 

James looked slightly suspicious, but answered him anyway.

“Mastermind saw us coming and made a run for it.” he said. “Zach and his group are already in pursuit.”

“Then let’s go!” John barked. “Lead the way, kid!”

James nodded excitedly and turned, bounding off immediately. The others followed him closely, Gin, Akame, John, and Riley right on his tail. Mere seconds later, it seemed, they entered a large open area…and saw the carnage that had been wrought already. Dogs lay scattered by the edge of a steep drop-off, every one of them covered in blood, entrails, or both, and some with sharpened tree spikes speared right through them. 

Gin sniffed at the ground as the rest of his companions looked around. Then he turned to Akame.

“You think these dogs were lured too?” he asked and Akame nodded.

“It looks like they were cornered against the cliff once they were,” the ninja-dog said, examining the body of a dog with a tree spike speared straight through his eye. “Then these things were thrown at them. If that didn’t work, they were driven off of it.”

“This ‘Mastermind’ has a twisted way of fighting.” Kurotora remarked. “It’s like he’s afraid to face his opponents one on one.”

“Fear has nothing to do with it.” Akame said. “His tactics are very much like a ninja-dog’s. I’m actually impressed.”

“Think you can outwit him?” John asked, his voice almost teasing despite the seriousness of the situation.

“Yes.” Akame answered bluntly. “I can. I just need time.”

“Actually, you might not.” Chutora piped up suddenly. “Look!”

The whole group of them turned and, following his gaze, and saw a shadowed figure standing on a rocky outcropping about 50 feet away. The minute he saw the figure, James hissed:

“It’s him! It’s Mastermind!”

As if on cue, the figure lunged sideways and leapt off the outcropping, already running the second his paws hit the ground. 

“After him!” Kurotora yelled and the group shot off in pursuit, Akame and Gin leading the way. 

Their target was fast though, and they only gained a little ground, still seeing nothing but his dark silhouette in the dimming light. 

“Stop there!” Gin yelled, but Mastermind didn’t heed the warning. 

Instead, he bolted down a hillside, weaving in and out of rocks and trees before finally vanishing through a gap in between two large protruding roots of a fallen tree. Behind him, Akame and Gin did the same, but found that when they emerged on the other side, their quarry was gone, not even a trace of his scent left anywhere to reveal where he had vanished to. Seconds later, the rest of their group caught up to them and began looking around as they had done. 

“Where is he?” Chutora asked Gin and the Akita gave a frustrated look back at the path in front of them. 

“We lost him.” he said. 

Suddenly, another dog ran up behind them and they all turned fast, dropping into battle stances as they did. When they saw who it was, though, they calmed down. Standing there, panting hard like he had just run very fast, was Zach.

“Brother!” James half demanded. “Where were you?! I thought you had him!”

Zach shook his head.

“He left me a false trail and lost me a ways back.” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry.” Riley said reassuringly to his son. “We didn’t do any better.”

“So are we going to go find him or just stand here?” Smith asked crossly and Zach shook his head, not even bothering to ask why they had come back.

“No point.” he said. “The trees in there get pretty hard to navigate at night. We’d have a hard time finding our way back out, let alone him.”

“Very well,” Gin said, looking even more frustrated upon hearing this. “Let’s head back to your base for the night and get some sleep. We’ll track him down tomorrow.”

At that, the group turned and followed Riley, who stepped to the front and began leading them back the way they came. As they walked, Akame fell in beside Zach at the rear of the group, the Malamute glancing briefly up at him as he did before turning back to the trail in front of them. The ninja-dog glanced back at him. 

“How close did you get to him?” he asked. “Mastermind.”

Zach snorted.

“Not close enough.” he said. “I always figured he was pretty good, but I didn’t expect him to be **that** good.”

“Neither did I.” Akame said, still keeping the same calm tone to his voice. “Did you get close enough to see what kind of dog he was.”

“Unfortunately not.”

“Hmm.” the Kishu said. “Never mind, then. I just wanted your opinion. I thought it might be valuable, because to me…his shape looked like a Malamute.”

Zach stopped walking instantly and gave him a hard look as Akame did the same, his tail swishing back and forth behind him. For a moment, the two males just stared at each other, neither one backing down or breaking their mutual glare.

“What are you saying?” Zach asked challengingly and Akame turned to face him completely.

“I’m not saying anything right now.” he said in a deliberately calm voice. “I’m just expressing **my** opinion. Forgive me, I meant no disrespect.”

Zach said nothing for a moment, then, after looking Akame nose to tail, turned and walked away, striding up next to his brother seconds later. Akame resumed walking as well, and once he had, John and Gin dropped back next to him.

“Is everything all right, Akame?” Gin asked in a low, concerned voice and John chimed in:

“Yeah, what was **that** about?”

Akame glanced at both his friends. 

“Nothing.” he said stiffly. “Just a little test.”  
  


* * *

  
It didn’t take long for the group of them to get back to Riley’s main pack area and once they had, it was completely dark out. The Malamute leader had sent a few small groups of his subordinates out to patrol the outer borders of their territory, keeping watch for invaders as the higher-ranking dogs in the pack and the Ohu warriors rested up and discussed what to do about ‘Mastermind’. Most of them were just resting though, and on Riley’s order, James and Zach had caught some rodents and other small animals for their guests to eat, distributing them as they arrived back. Akame couldn’t quite tell if the elder Malamute brother had forgotten yet about their unfriendly exchange only a short time ago, because while his mood seemed greatly improved, he seemed to be deliberately avoiding the ninja-dog’s gaze. James, meanwhile, had taken to fooling around with Kurotora and Smith, play fighting with both of them and convincing Zach to reluctantly join in. Gin, John, and Riley smiled at this, and Akame couldn’t help but crack a smile himself, though he kept on guard. The whole situation still made him feel uncomfortable, especially with his friends in the direct line of fire if something happened. As they relaxed, he saw Gin look over at Riley, getting his attention as he did. Then the Akita nodded over at the Ibaraki leader’s two sons.

“Not to sound intrusive, Riley,” he said in a quiet voice, “But Zach and James, did you raise them yourself?”

The Malamute nodded.

“My brother and I both did.” he said. “My mate died a long time ago, so we both kind of helped raise them when we could. It got harder once Don left and I became leader, but…we managed.”

Gin nodded, looking back at the play-fighting group.

“I see.” he said. “That’s admirable.”

Riley nodded in thanks, and Gin went to say something else, but didn’t get the chance, because at that moment, Zach walked over and lay down by the two of them. Once he had, he looked at the Ohu leader curiously. 

“Can I ask you a question, Gin?” he asked and Gin nodded at him.

“We heard that your father Riki used some kind of special fighting move that only he could do.” he said. “What was it?”

“The Zetsu Tenrou Battouga.” Gin said, looking nostalgic at the mention of his legendary father’s name. “He learned it from a wolf. It’s the move that I used to kill Akakabuto.”

“Then you know how to do it as well?” Zach said, his eyes widening a little as an excited look spread over his face. “Amazing… Think you could teach me?”

Gin laughed.

“Sorry.” he said, shaking his head. “It’s not something that just anyone can learn. None of my friends are able to do it either.”

Zach shrugged good-naturedly and looked at James.

“Well, I tried.” he said and John snorted slightly, looking bored.

“You’re going to have to do better than that if you want to convince people of things, kid.” he said and Zach raised an eyebrow.

“Oh?” he replied teasingly. “Well, how about **you** teach us some moves then, tough guy? You know, if you have any.”

John gave him a livid glare and leapt to his feet instantly with a small growl.

“Don’t you look down on me, brat!” he snapped, though it didn’t have too much real anger behind it. “I could wipe the ground with you in a fight!”

“Think so, huh?” Zach grinned, baiting the Shepherd perfectly. “Prove it then.”

“Fine, prepare yourself!” John barked and jumped backwards into a battle stance, watching as the younger Malamute did the same, both dogs beginning to circle each other almost immediately.

Gin smiled and shook his head and was about to tell them both to knock it off and calm down a little when something burst out of the trees with a snarl. It was an invading dog of some kind and as it lunged, it flew right at Riley, who was totally unprepared.

“Die, bastard!” the dog screamed, but didn’t get anything else out, as Gin moved like a bullet and grabbed him by the neck before he could reach his target. 

Then he threw him hard into a nearby tree, the strength of the throw making the wood splinter slightly. Suddenly, though, other dogs came out from the same spot behind him, howling battle cries, and everyone leapt to their paws, John and Zach abandoning their fight to leap into the fray. Kurotora and Chutora slashed right and left at the attackers, landing every hit and sending blood flying through the air, while Akame did the same nearby, moving back and forth between different targets and not even getting hit once as he did, his speed and agility unmatched by the hapless invaders. Eventually, as Riley joined the fight alongside Gin, showing off his own impressive fighting skills, the attackers realized that they were hopelessly outmatched and decided to turn and run, yelping as they retreated into the darkness of the trees. Zach immediately leapt after them, turning to his brother as he did.

“James!” he barked commandingly, “You’re with me! Dad, stay with Gin and the others!”

Then, as Riley yelled after him, both Malamute brothers leapt after the fleeing dogs. Akame, John, & Gin quickly leapt after them as well, the latter giving Smith and the Kais a nod to tell them to guard Riley as they left. Once they were in the forest, Akame immediately took to the treetops to avoid being seen, and Gin and John stayed on ground level, running off after James quickly. Akame, though, immediately took off in the direction that Zach had gone, hearing the noises the elder Malamute brother was making as he crashed through the underbrush. After a minute, the ninja-dog got Zach in his sights and slowed his pace, making himself as invisible as possible as he watched his target. Suddenly, as Zach caught up with one of the fleeing dogs, another shape flew in from the side and crashed into him hard, sending the elder Malamute brother rolling sideways with a grunt of pain upon impact. Akame saw this and quickly leapt to the other dog’s aid, landing in between him and the snarling attacker and dissuading a second assault as he squared off to him. Once he had, he froze. The attacker was far enough away that he still couldn’t make out any features, but when he saw him, Akame immediately recognized the shape, having seen it before. It was ‘Mastermind’! The rogue leader immediately grabbed the dog Zach had been chasing and leapt away into the dark once more, ignoring Akame’s shout of “Stop!” as he did. The ninja-dog tried to follow, but eventually lost him again and growled in frustration as he heard Zach pad up next to him, wincing a little from the earlier hit. 

“Still think I’m him?” he said sarcastically and for the first time in a long time, Akame found that he had nothing at all to say.   
  


* * *

  
“So it’s **not** him?” Gin said as they walked. “Are you sure?”

“He was with me when we saw him,” Akame said, “It can’t be.”

“And James was with us when we saw him the first time,” John chimed in. “So it can’t be him either. Terrific.”

Akame nodded, clenching his fangs tightly in frustration as the three of them moved back towards Smith and the others. He had met back up with John and Gin only minutes ago, and the three had decided to head back to the others to regroup and rethink their strategy. Zach had gone to find James, and after he had left, Akame had explained the encounter to his two best friends. 

“I don’t understand.” he said in his calm voice. “I was sure it was him.”

“We’re all wrong sometimes, Akame.” John said reassuringly as the ninja-dog looked at him. “Even you.”

“Mmm.” Akame said in agreement. “But my instincts have never been this off before. None of this makes sense, and that makes me uncomfortable.”

“Try not thinking about it for a while.” Gin suggested, glancing supportively at his white-furred friend. “Who knows, maybe the answer’ll just hit you out of the blue.”

Akame nodded again and looked ahead, resuming his walk back towards the Ibaraki clan’s home base silently. Suddenly, as if it were fate, a thought occurred to Akame that he hadn’t considered before and he stopped dead in his tracks. Confused, Gin and John stopped as well, looking back at him. 

“Akame,” Gin asked in concern. “What is it?”

For a moment, the Kishu didn’t answer, but then he looked at them with a determined glare and a small growl.

“I know what’s going on.” he said, and they gave him startled looks.

“You do?” John said, his eyebrow raised skeptically. “What then?”

“Not yet,” the ninja-dog answered. “Not until I’m positive. Leader, John, go to the cliff where we first saw Mastermind and wait there. Make sure you’re not seen. I have an idea.”

The two of them nodded and ran off immediately, leaving Akame alone. As soon as he was, he turned and ran towards the cliff as well, eventually breaking off from his friends’ path and heading back to the tree root that Mastermind had disappeared through the first time they’d chased him only hours ago. Moving as silently as possible, Akame slipped through it and continued further on, moving around a large tree trunk and larger boulder that lay in his path. Almost the second he had, he came face to face with the entrance to a cave, hidden in the rock face behind the trees and underbrush of the forest. As he listened, Akame heard voices emanating from within it, and he silently slipped inside as well. Immediately, he noticed that the light was just as dim in there as in the forest, and he moved even more carefully, scanning the dark for any sign of movement or watching eyes. Finally, he got to a corner and stopped, hearing the voices clear as day and realizing that they must be directly on the other side. Then one voice called for the others to shut up and Akame listened, hearing a faint growl as did. 

“Do you know how you even got into this territory?” the voice asked someone and Akame realized that it was his target…‘Mastermind’.

“Fuck you, motherfucker!” came a second pained voice, and the ninja-dog realized that they had a captive.

‘Shit.’ he thought, but Mastermind spoke again and he was ripped out of his thoughts.

“I’ll take that as a ‘no’.” came his taunting, yet angry voice. “Well, I’ll tell you anyway. You got in here because I ordered the guards to **let** you in. We knew you were there. If I didn’t leave you alone though, how would I have been able to discover your **real** intentions? And now, unfortunately for you, I know what they are…and you’re in a deep load of shit, pal.”

Other voices jeered him on and Akame realized that the rogue pack leader had quite a few subordinates at his beck and call. Then the captive dog spoke again.

“You’ll never get me to talk!” he snarled. “You and your whole fucking clan can go to hell!”

“I’m going to tell you a story,” Mastermind said, ignoring him as Akame listened intently from where he stood concealed. “About 2 years ago or so, a group of rogue dogs, like you, came into my pack’s territory without permission. Their purpose, as I understand it, was to take our land for themselves, and depose us by force if they had to. So, they attacked my home and took us all captive. I was just a kid at the time, maybe…5-6 months old. They had wanted to beat my uncle into submission and make him surrender the land to them, but since they messed up their timing and he wasn’t there, they had to settle for the second best option: My mother.”

Akame felt a sense of dread fill him as he listened to the rogue leader’s story, but his attention was on his voice instead.

‘I knew it!’ the ninja-dog thought to himself as he heard it. ‘He’s tried to mask it, but that’s definitely his voice!’

Mastermind meanwhile, kept talking.

“They tortured her.” he said, “They…did things to her…and all the while, I was sitting there watching, being held immobile by a dog twice my size and strength. Every time they tried to get her to call for my uncle to come, she refused. They told her that if she did they _might_ let me live to be their slave, but she still refused. Eventually, they realized that she wasn’t going to cooperate and they killed her…right in front of me. Before they could touch me, though, my uncle and father came back with a couple neighboring packs and counterattacked them. They killed most of them of course, but the leader slipped away. No one could find him. Fast-forward a couple of years, though, and **I** found out where he had run to. So one day, when I finally couldn’t take it anymore, I tracked him down and confronted him. I…told him who I was, what he had done to my mom, and what it had done to my father and me. Then I knocked him onto his back and drove my claws into his eyes as hard as I possibly could, and he let out this…shriek, this…high-pitched scream of pain that sounded like it should’ve come from a crying female pup, and all I could think of as he died was… **justice**. It took him almost 30 whole seconds to bleed to death.”

Akame was horrified, and had to stifle a gasp so that he wouldn’t be detected. Luckily, none of the dogs heard anything, and he remained unobserved.

“I’m telling you this,” Mastermind said to the dog on the ground, “Because that is **nothing** compared to what I’m going to do to you for trying to kill Riley of Ibaraki. Dogs like you who hurt others for their own gain or pleasure disgust me, so you better pray that your god has mercy…’cause I don’t.”  
  
Then Akame heard a loud scream of agony and a loud cheer went up from dogs inside. Knowing that he needed to do something, the ninja-dog darted out from his hiding place and lunged at the rogue leader, his speed taking him past all the subordinates before they even realized what had happened. Clenching his teeth tightly in preparation, Akame crashed into Mastermind hard with his shoulder, sending him flying into the cave’s rear wall with an audible grunt of surprise. As he landed, the ninja-dog slashed him across the shoulder with his fangs, drawing blood upon impact. 

‘That way I’ll be able to prove it later.’ he thought.

Knowing that he had no time to linger, though, he quickly grabbed the captive dog, whose ear had been torn clean off, by the neck and threw him over his shoulder. Then Akame ran full speed back out the entrance, hearing the subordinates’ cries behind him of:

“Stop him! Grab him!”

As he reentered the forest and jumped back through the tree root, Akame heard the dogs exit the cave and begin pursuing him, so he vaulted up into the trees and began leaping from branch to branch, a technique he had all but perfected over the years of ninja training. This quickly led him back to the cliff side, where Gin and John were waiting. They jumped to meet him instantly as he arrived.

“Akame!” Gin said, then gasped as he saw the dog his friend was carrying. “What happened?”

“Get ready!” the ninja-dog responded, and at that moment, the rogue pack emerged from the trees as well, looking angry and ready to fight. 

At the front was the dog known as ‘Mastermind’ and as he saw all three of them, he skidded to a grinding halt, finally seeing the trap he had walked right into.

“Shit!” they heard him exclaim and then he ran, heading right back towards where Riley and the rest of their friends were waiting. 

Akame, Gin, and John were already in pursuit, though, and they knocked his subordinates out of the way and closed the gap quickly, taking only seconds to catch up to their target. Right as Mastermind burst into the main base area of the Ibaraki clan, Akame lunged out of the tree he had leapt up into, his teeth bared, and tackled the surprised killer at the same time Gin did, sending the three of them crashing to the ground with a painful ‘THUD’. At first, Mastermind put up a bit of a fight, trying to throw them off, but didn’t stand a chance alone against the other two males, and once John and Kurotora leapt into the fray, the rogue leader was pinned almost instantly. Once he was, they saw a familiar face beneath them. 

“What’s going on?!” Riley yelled in alarm, running up to the combatants. “What in the world is – ”

Then he saw who they had pinned.

“J-James?!” he said in astonishment, then looked at Gin and repeated. “What’s going on?!”

“I’d like to know that too.” Kurotora said as he pinned James’s hind legs.

“Say hello to ‘The Mastermind’.” growled Akame. “At least…the **first** one.”

James growled beneath them.

“Get **off** me!!” he hissed. 

“I don’t understand.” John said, looking at Akame in confusion as Riley looked shocked. “He was with us when we saw ‘Mastermind’ the first time!”

“But Zach wasn’t.” Akame answered, his expression almost triumphant as he looked back at the Shepherd.

“But you said he was with you when you saw him the second time!”

“He was.” the Kishu said. “But James wasn’t. And that was their game.”

A look of dawning realization spread over the Ohu soldiers’ faces, and Gin stared down at the captive young Malamute.

“They were working together!” he said, looking almost impressed in spite of himself.

“Exactly.” Akame said as Riley’s face went slack in horror. “But James here was just the decoy. Zach’s the **real** ‘Mastermind’. He’s the one killing the invading dogs.”

“Are you sure?” Gin asked and Akame nodded.

“I slashed the shoulder of the real one.” he said. “James doesn’t have any in his.”

“James…” Riley said, slumping to his stomach. “What did you do?!”

“I didn’t do **anything** Dad,” the young Malamute pleaded. “He’s crazy! I swear!”

“You just protected your brother.” Akame said sternly down at him. “And that I understand. But what he’s doing is wrong and you know it! Now **where** is he?”

“I don’t know!” James insisted, suddenly looking afraid of the Ohu soldiers. “Zach just told me to give him a head start and ran off! He said killing them was the only way to protect our family! He said it was us or them!”

“James!” Riley barked. “That’s not the way it works! That makes you as bad as them!”

“Why?” James growled in genuine confusion. “Our pack’s been protected, hasn’t it?”

Upon hearing this, Gin glared right at Riley and stepped off of the subdued James.

“Where would he go, Riley?” he asked intensely and the Ibaraki leader looked away uncomfortably, clearly caught off guard by the question.

“I…don’t know.” he mumbled.

John and Akame stepped up to Gin’s side at that, the former growling as Chutora and Smith took their places.

“Yes you do!” the German Shepherd snapped. “You’re just trying to protect him like James was. You already failed him once, Riley, don’t do it again by letting this continue!”

“I loved him!” Riley snapped back, looking offended. “I taught him how to take care of himself since he was a pup!”

“But you weren’t a father to him.” Akame scolded, and Riley’s ears drooped. “Just showing love to your children isn’t enough. You need to show them right from wrong, and be there for them when they’re having trouble. Because you were too busy becoming the leader, you didn’t keep track of your sons. Now one of them has a warped sense of the world and the other is completely out of control. You need to tell us where Zach is, now.”

“Please…” Riley pleaded, his crushed gaze showing them that he knew the ninja-dog was right. “He’s my son.”

“And I promise you we’ll bring him in alive.” Gin said, taking command of the conversation once more. “I promise you. But you have to tell us where he is, Riley. **Now** _._ ”

Riley let out a ragged, defeated sigh. Then, after a minute’s silence, he spoke.

“…There’s a mountain pass near the Northern border of our territory.” he said softly. “He goes there sometimes to be alone and think.”

Gin immediately turned to his comrades holding James.

“Smith,” he said. “You and the others keep James here and make sure he doesn’t escape. Akame, John and I will go get Zach.”

“Of course, Gin.” the Spaniel said, “But be careful!”

Gin nodded gratefully, and then did the same to John and Akame. They needed no further encouragement. Seconds later, the three of them had run off, disappearing almost instantly from sight.   
  


* * *

  
It took the three leaders of Ohu almost half an hour to reach the pass that Riley had spoken of, but while they were running, Akame explaining in the meantime to his comrades what he had heard in the cave, they had realized that Zach was not too far ahead of them and had decided not to rest. Now, as they entered the pass, John turned to Gin and bowed his head a little.

“Gin,” he said, “If Zach doesn’t listen, we may have to kill him. I’ll be the one to do it if you want.”

“No John.” the Akita said immediately, looking determined. “He needs a role model, not an executioner. I intend to keep my promise to Riley. No one else dies because of this.”

John looked surprised, but didn’t say anything else and Akame knew that their leader was thinking once more back to Heizo, and what he had done before. They had no more time to dwell on it though, because suddenly they spotted someone ahead of them, walking quickly through the pass in the same direction they were going. It was Zach. Seeing this, and not waiting for the Malamute to notice them, Akame put on a burst of speed and ran up the side of a hill to his right, getting as close as possible to his target without being detected. Then he kicked off from the ground and lunged hard at the elder Malamute’s back the same way he had done to James. Just as before, it hit perfectly, and the two canines’ bodies collided hard as Akame grabbed the surprised dog by the scruff of the neck with his jaws and threw him to the ground with all his strength. Smacking the dirt hard and grunting at the impact, Zach rolled 3 times from the momentum and then leaped to his paws, coming to rest facing the ninja-dog. As their eyes met, both dogs growled, but then Zach stopped, looking as if he had just noticed who they were.

“Akame?” he said in a surprised voice. “Why are you here?”

Akame maintained his growl as he heard John and Gin step up behind him.

“Drop the act.” he hissed at the Malamute. “You know **exactly** why we’re here.”

Zach frowned, a fresh slash mark clearly visible on his right shoulder.

“Actually, I don’t.” he responded flatly. “But feel free to fill me in anytime you want. An explanation for that body slam would be nice, too.”

“We caught James.” Akame said, keeping his gaze locked with the younger dog’s. “Our friends are holding him back at your father’s main base.”

Zach tensed up immediately and Akame knew that he was getting somewhere.

“Yeah, you expected him to get away, didn’t you?” John said triumphantly from behind him. “But he didn’t, and now we know the truth.”

Zach looked livid.

“You **attacked** my brother?!” he growled. “How **dare** you!”

“He’s not hurt,” Gin said. “But he could have been, just for trying to protect you and your secret, for pretending to be you while you and your group of vigilantes killed all those dogs!”

Zach’s eyes widened and he looked shocked.

“H- **He’s** Mastermind?!” he stammered. “That’s impossible! You have to have – ”

Suddenly, Akame stamped his paw down hard, making everyone stop to look at him. As they did, Gin and John were shocked to see the anger on their normally stoic friend’s face. 

“Don’t. play. me!” he said in a deadly voice, telling the Malamute clearly that he was no longer messing around. “I’m Akame of Iga. My pack and I were fooling our enemies with this type of deception before you were even **born**! Too many dogs have died here just to slake your bloodlust and I am **sick** of your games. So drop the act, **NOW**!”

For a moment, Zach just stared at the ninja-dog. Then they saw a knowing smile slowly spread across his muzzle, and Gin felt a chill go through him as he finally saw the proof that Akame had been right all along. The elder Malamute brother snorted.

“Well, I have to admit, I’m impressed.” he said. “You really are as good as your reputations. How’d you figure it out?”

“I know when I’m being lied to.” Akame said simply. “And I trust my instincts. That’s how a ninja-dog survives.”

“Well,” Zach said, glaring at him and stretching his neck. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t congratulate you on becoming an incredible thorn in my side.”

“This stops here.” Akame responded sternly.

“They had it coming.” Zach said as if reading their thoughts. “They invaded our territory, threatened my home and pack, and were there for no reason other than to fight and hurt others. They reaped what they sowed.”

“This wasn’t just about protecting your clan and you know it!” Gin said angrily, stepping up beside Akame. “You did it to get back at them for your mother’s death! That’s why you acted so cruelly, enjoyed hurting them so much!”

“They came into my home and killed someone I loved!” Zach shouted with an equally angry growl. “Just because they could! They killed her in front of me just because they wanted to provoke my Uncle and get our territory! Why shouldn’t I return the favor?! It shows them that if you prey on the innocent while underestimating them, you’ll die the way you lived!”

“Listen to yourself!” Gin said incredulously, shaking his head. “You sound just as bad as them!”

“I protected my home!”

“You took it too far.” John finally added, glaring at him as well. “And now you’re going to stop…willingly or unwillingly.”

Zach lowered his head, dropping into a battle crouch.

“Think so do you?” he said as they did the same. “Try and **make** me then!”

“Why do you think we’re here?” Gin finished, but then Akame looked at him.

“Gin,” he said in a respectful yet quietly angry voice. “Let me do this. I started this, let me finish it.”

Gin looked surprised, but nodded and stepped back out of the way with John as Akame squared himself off to Zach. The younger dog narrowed his eyes immediately.

“Don’t underestimate me, Akame.” he said. “You may be a legend, but I’m not a dog to be trifled with.”

“I’m not.” the Kishu responded intensely. “I’ve seen what you’re capable of, Zach. Refocused, you could be a great male. But for now, you’re just an opponent, and a worthy one in my eyes.”

“Thanks Akame,” the Malamute responded, not breaking his gaze. “I’m almost flattered.”

On the last word, he suddenly lunged sideways at a tree and kicked off from it, flying at the ninja-dog seconds later at an impressive speed. Seeing him coming, Akame dodged quickly, making his jaws snap shut on empty air. Then he lunged back at him, faking a bite and smacking him hard across the face with his paw, claws extended. As his head snapped sideways and blood flew from his mouth, Zach leaped backwards out of his stumble, suddenly on the defense as Akame bit at him left and right, only landing a few glancing blows as the Malamute ducked and dodged almost every one, using his impressive speed to his advantage. Then suddenly, Zach threw dirt into the older dog’s eyes and used the moment’s distraction to knock him clean off his feet, diving onto him seconds later, teeth aiming for the ninja-dog’s jugular. Akame was a master fighter though, and used the Malamute’s own momentum and his hind legs to flip him so they were switched, making it so he was suddenly the one on top, Zach’s neck between his jaws. The younger dog thrashed left and right as he tried to get free, eventually grabbing Akame’s ear in his teeth just by sheer luck and biting hard, drawing blood. 

Akame grimaced in pain, but kept his grip firm, trying to get a good stance on the ground to end the fight once and for all. He could have ripped Zach’s throat out completely had he wanted, but Gin’s words flashed through his mind, and he too was determined to end the fight with both of them still breathing. Suddenly, Zach wrapped his hind legs around Akame’s midsection and rolled them, getting a foothold on the ground almost the second they landed and kicking off hard with his powerful legs, sending them flying into a tree trunk and making Akame take most of the blow. As the Kishu’s grip loosened on his neck at the sudden impact, Zach twisted free and kicked him hard in the muzzle, cutting a large slash in his opponent’s face and making the seasoned ninja-dog taste fresh blood in his mouth as he fell back onto his side. 

Then the Malamute made a run for it, sprinting further into the pass as fast as he could manage in an attempt to get away. Akame, though, was much faster and was back on his paws again before Zach could even take 5 strides. He bolted down the pathway like lightning after his opponent, and lunged with all his strength as soon as he could, tackling him once more and sending them both rolling in a tangle of limbs further down the pass. Zach whirled around in response and tried to slash him across the face with his fangs, but Akame ducked the blow and kicked the Malamute as hard as he could in the stomach with his hind legs, winding him completely and giving him the opening he needed. Knocking him onto his back again, Akame shot his jaws right for the younger dog’s throat, getting no resistance from the still stunned Malamute. Finally, once Zach’s neck was firmly between his jaws again, Akame felt his paws get a good grip on the ground beneath them and he let loose his finishing move. Shifting his weight from his front to his hind legs, the ninja-dog swung around, making Zach’s whole body go with him, and slammed the Malamute’s head into a large, nearby rock as hard as he could. Blood exploded from the impact point, and Zach let out a surprised, pained grunt as he felt the hit, his eyes going wide. Then he went limp and lay still, Akame releasing his grip and jumping back as he did. The fight was over. Seeing this, Gin and John stepped forward, both looking pleased with the outcome. 

“Impressive Akame.” John said with a grin. “As always.”

Akame nodded, panting slightly, then looked at Gin.

“No one else dies.” he said and the Akita nodded with a grateful smile. 

“Let’s get him back to the others,” he said and picked up the bleeding Malamute, throwing him over his back. 

Then the three dogs headed back the way they’d come.  
  


* * *

  
“I’m very sorry about everything that’s happened.” Riley said as the soldiers of Ohu stood in front of him. “I’ll be talking to all my sons’ subordinates about it after you leave. I promise you that I’ll work to make this as right as I can.”

Gin nodded kindly, recognizing the sincerity of his apology.

“I’m sure you will, Riley.” he said.

He, John, and Akame had arrived back only a short time ago carrying the unconscious Zach, and had immediately been greeted by the others and Riley, who had been very concerned about the well-being of his eldest son. After cleaning the blood off of Zach’s head wound a little, he had then helped them all wake him up and it had taken a minute to subdue him, his reaction being one of anger after realizing that he had lost the fight with Akame. The elder Malamute brother had finally calmed down upon seeing where he was though, and reluctantly allowed Chutora and Great to hold him in place as Gin and the others talked to his father. Beside the Ibaraki leader, James sat with a guilty expression, having gotten a good talking to from his father and the other Ohu soldiers who’d stayed at the base while the three leaders hunted down his brother. Now, Gin and his troupe were getting ready to depart Ibaraki once and for all, ready to move on to the next territory, but there were a few things that the Ohu leader wanted to address first. He looked at Riley with a patient, yet serious look.

“We may send a messenger back down here in a few months to see how things are going.” he said. “In that time, you must do what you feel is right for James. After all, he’s your son, and we’re letting him stay in your care, despite what he helped do. Maybe now he can become the dog you meant him to be.”

“He will.” Riley said, and looked down at his younger son sternly.

James shrunk back a little, but gave a small, sheepish smile nonetheless.

“Yes father.” he said, and Gin and Riley both nodded in approval.

Then everyone’s gaze panned to the captive Zach, and any smiles that were on their muzzles faded instantly. The Malamute snorted slightly as they stared at him. 

“Is this the part where I promise I’ll be a good boy and you leave?” he asked sarcastically. “Because if it is, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

Gin shook his head as he looked at him and then walked up until he was right in front of him. 

“I wish we could, Zach.” he said in a quiet but harsh voice, glaring right into the Malamute’s eyes only inches from his face. “I really do. If I could have things the way I want them, I would leave you here with your family, and we would go on our way. But I can’t, and I won’t, and the reason for that is very unfortunate, but very simple: I don’t trust you. I know you and I are going to have a difficult time accepting each other and getting along, to say nothing of you and the rest of my pack, but we’re going to have to do it somehow, because until I feel I can trust you to be left alone without causing the needless deaths of others, you will stay with us…where I can keep my eye on you. Hopefully we can both become better males for it along the way.”

Zach looked thunderstruck, and it was clear to everyone that this was the last thing he had expected. 

“Y-You can’t just… **keep** me!” he said in a shocked voice. “You have no right! This isn’t even your territory!”

“But it **is** mine.”

Zach’s head swiveled towards the owner of the voice and Riley stepped forward, looking at his eldest son with a sad, but determined gaze. 

“Zach,” he said, trying to sound gentle. “Gin and I talked it over while you were unconscious, and we’ve both agreed that the best thing for you right now is to go with them. They can help you more than I can, son.”

“You can’t do this!” Zach stammered. “I protected this place! It’s my home!”

“And no one is more thankful for it than me.” Riley said, sounding even sadder than before. “But by doing that, you’ve become the very thing you were fighting against. I know that that’s my fault, Zach…because I wasn’t there for you, but the fact remains that you’re not the dog you used to be, and I don’t know how to fix that.”

He walked up to his stunned older son and put a comforting paw on his shoulder.

“I love you, Zach.” he said. “And I always will… but right now the person you need to be saved from the most is yourself, and I don’t know how to do that.”

“B-But **they** do? Their leader is practically my age! Father, please!”

“Yes,” Riley said, looking tearfully at Gin. “I think they do. And I hope that before I die, they can return you to me as the good dog you once were. Once that happens, Zach, you’ll be welcome to come back home. Until then, though, for your brother’s sake if no other…you’ll have to go with them.”

For a moment, Zach stood completely still, clearly at a total loss for words, and Gin thought he saw a tear slide down the Malamute’s furred cheek as Riley stepped back beside James, who nodded a goodbye at his brother before looking back at the ground. Then, Zach let out a faint growl, his eyes wet and trembling in fury.

“Fine then.” he said, glaring at them both. “Send me away. See what fucking happens, Dad. They’ll overrun the whole territory and you’ll end up wishing I was still here, but FINE!! I’LL FUCKING GO! You’re both **dead** to me!”

Then he turned and stormed off, allowing Chutora and Great to guard him closely as he did. Gin felt a stab of pity for the Malamute as he stared after him, despite what he’d done, but he pushed it back and turned his head back to the tear-streaked Riley. 

“We’ll take care of him.” he said. “You have my word.”

“Thank you.” Riley said. “Good luck to you, Gin.”

“And you.” Gin replied, then turned to his comrades.

“Guys,” he said. “Let’s go.”

The soldiers of Ohu all responded with grunts or calls of support for their leader, and they resumed their course South, leaving the territory of Ibaraki behind them quickly. Once they were out of sight once and for all of Riley, James and their home base, Akame walked up beside the angry, miserable-looking Zach. 

“You may not think so right now.” he said in his calm voice. “But we’re doing this for your own good. We don’t have to be enemies anymore. I hope you learn to accept us as teachers…as friends.”

Zach glared over at him furiously, his look suggesting that he would’ve liked nothing more than to hurt the ninja-dog as badly as he possibly could. Then he turned back to the path ahead. 

“Go to hell.” he spat in a quiet, shaky voice and Akame sighed. 

Then he turned back to their track as well. 

“I never said it would be easy.” he replied softly, then sped up, walking up beside Gin and John at the front of the group, leaving the Malamute alone with his thoughts as they vanished over a hill. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A major character is introduced here. It's also the start of the formation of the full group that continues through most of the rest of the saga.


	3. Story 3 - The Haunted

John stretched his neck as they kept their pace steady. At the rate they were going, they would reach the next stop on their journey, the Kanagawa Prefecture, very shortly, and he was actually looking forward to getting there. The small territory rested directly against the ocean, and the group of them had been able to smell the salty odor of the sea as soon as they’d gotten close. John had always liked the ocean, and its approaching proximity had improved his mood somewhat, something he was sure Gin and Akame were grateful for. It had been a little less than a week since they left the Ibaraki territory, and though he had made a distinct effort not to, John had found himself in almost immediate conflict with their newest packmate. 

In the short time he’d been with them, Zach had switched moods a few times, going from a wounded depression at his father’s rejection of him to a sullen anger at the Ohu Soldiers for figuring him out and forcing him to leave his home, something that Gin had quickly and sternly reminded him he had brought upon himself. The Malamute had retaliated for this by switching to a positively infuriating form of sarcasm, driving them all to the limits of their patience with his little offhand comments about them and their actions. This had culminated with John himself whirling around to smack him in the face, sending him flying into a tree. Then the Shepherd had nearly driven him off permanently in fury…until Akame and Gin had chastised him quietly for playing right into the Malamute’s paws and nearly doing exactly what he had wanted him to do in the first place. This had embarrassed John somewhat, and though Zach had been moved up to the front of the group, where Gin claimed he could keep a better eye on him, he felt like he had been defeated somehow by the other male. 

In the past, John would’ve immediately retaliated for this, having always had problems with his temper, but now that he was one of the leaders of Ohu, he needed to behave more like one, and it was with great difficulty that he let this incident slide. Kurotora helped his mood a little by telling him that if there was trouble, he would use Zach as a living shield, a remark which the Malamute had attempted to respond to, until Akame had bitten him hard on the back of the neck, telling him crossly that he needed to learn respect, and that each time he tried to taunt them from there on, he would get bitten, each time harder than the last. Zach had done it a few more times anyway, probably testing the ninja-dog’s resolve, John thought, and had quickly and painfully discovered that the elder canine was true to his word. After this, he had shut up, and they had walked in relative quiet until they reached where they were now. Suddenly, John heard Gin talking, which snapped him out of his thoughts. 

“Kurotora, Chutora,” the Akita was saying. “You know this pack, right? What kind of welcome should we expect?”

“They’re good males, leader.” Kurotora responded. “Their boss, Hideo, is an old friend of Akatora’s. His cousin Isao was the one who fought and died for us during the war.”

“Why didn’t he come himself?” John asked and the Kai dog turned to him as they walked.

“He was partially crippled in an accident a few years back.” he answered and the Shepherd turned back to the path ahead of him with a nod. “The way I hear it, he knew he wouldn’t have been any use to us, so he sent Isao instead.”

“That’s very kind of him.” Gin said. “Maybe this will go well after all.”

“Or better than the last one at least.” John said, shooting a reproachful glare at Zach, who stood silently on Gin’s other side.

The Malamute grinned superciliously. 

“I know.” he said in a fake sympathetic voice. “But wasn’t it fun?”

“No.” John replied flatly. “It wasn’t. And in case you hadn’t heard, you lost.”

“John…” Gin warned and Zach opened his mouth to say shoot back a retort, but after noticing the glare Akame shot at him, wisely kept his mouth shut.

Then they kept walking, crossing a small stream seconds later and officially entering the Kanagawa Prefecture. 

“How do you think Smith, Great, & Wilson are doing over in Shizuoka?” Chutora asked, apparently eager to break the silence. 

“Hopefully well,” Gin responded from his position up front. “If all goes as it should, we should meet back up with them at the next territory we come to.”

“Hey,” Zach said suddenly. “You hear that?”

“Shut it.” the Kai dog said crossly, then turned back to the others. “Who were they going to give condolences for?”

“I don’t remember.” the Akita said. “It was someone Great was pretty close to, though, I know that. It only felt right that he give the condolences and not us.”

“No seriously,” Zach piped up again, “It sounds like someone’s right over there.”

“I said **shut up**!” Chutora hissed and John looked at the Malamute.

“Do you really think that **you** would’ve heard something **we** didn’t, brat?” he scoffed and Zach gave him a snorting frown.

“Does your ego even **fit** in this territory?” he retorted sarcastically and Kurotora burst out laughing despite himself as John growled angrily. 

He bit at the Malamute’s face as he jumped aside with a grin and then squared off to him, his hackles raised.

“That does it!” he snapped. “This time you lose a limb you little – ”

“Shh!” Akame said suddenly, interrupting him.

Gin turned to him as the two quarrelling dogs quieted down and saw him looking intently at a small grove of trees to their right.

“What is it, Akame?” he asked and the ninja-dog was silent for a moment.

Then he responded without looking at them.

“I think he’s right.” he said, referring to Zach. “There’s someone over there.”

The Malamute shot John a smug look at this, but the Shepherd managed to ignore him and step up beside his two friends. Gin stepped forward, looking at where the trees stopped and the banks of the small stream began. 

“Excuse me!” he called. “We’re looking for Hideo and his pack! Do you know where we can find them?”

There was no answer at first and the Akita looked at Akame quizzically, as if double-checking that he was right. The Kishu nodded and Gin went to talk again, but suddenly, a dog burst from the trees, moving like he was running for his life, and skidded to a halt abruptly upon seeing them. When they looked at him, Akame and John having quickly dropped into battle crouches around Gin as a precaution, they saw that he was clearly terrified of something, and his head whipped back and forth in fear. 

“Oh no…” he said shakily. “Oh fuck, no!”

Gin looked at him in concern.

“Are you all right?” he asked and the dog turned to him, looking nothing short of hysterical.

“Are you real?!” he yelled, and Gin blinked in surprise.

“Uh…”

“Are you fucking real?!” the dog said louder and then turned and screamed over his shoulder. “SHUT UP!! Go away!!”

Behind him, there was nothing in sight, and the Ohu soldiers looked at one another in confusion, none of them knowing what to say. Then, suddenly, the dog turned and ran off again, and Gin straightened up where he stood.

“Hey!” he barked and they all took off running after him, following him through the trees of the forest that surrounded the stream and past over a mile of terrain before he stopped dead at the edge of another clearing.

As John and the others skidded to a halt as well, they realized that they had stopped at a road, clearly used by the humans for traveling to and from the nearby ocean’s shore. Almost immediately, the dog turned and faced them again. 

“They won’t stop!” he said in a hoarse voice. “They shouldn’t even be here! It’s impossible! They won’t go away!”

“Who?” Gin demanded. “Who’s hurting you?”

The dog didn’t answer, though, and seemed to be mumbling to himself. As the Akita tried to take a step closer to him, he suddenly looked up and his eyes were blazing.

“GET AWAY FROM ME!!” he howled and Gin stopped in his tracks. 

Then, suddenly, they all heard a faint rumble, growing closer by the second. The dog looked at them again, a desperate look on his face.

“Get out!” he pleaded. “If you want to live, get out! This place is **hell**! They never, ever stop!”

With that, he took a step backwards out onto the road and John tensed up at the same time everyone else did.

“What are you doing?” Gin asked anxiously and the dog spoke in a soft voice.

Then, before any of them could react, a truck came speeding around the bend in the road, its momentum clearly telling them that it wasn’t going to stop for anything. Gin looked at the dog in alarm.

“NO!” he yelled, but neither he, nor Akame or John had any time to react. 

Before any of them could so much as move, the truck hit the dog hard in the middle of the road, sending him flying sideways as if he had been a bullet from a gun. His body was shattered on impact, and he bounced and rolled down the black concrete, getting run over by the truck’s back tire before finally coming to rest on his side. Then, as if it hadn’t even noticed, the truck sped off, leaving the dog lying dead in a pool of his own blood, his entrails and a leg strewn across the road behind him. For a long while, none of the Ohu dogs even made a sound, all of them too horrified to know what to do. Then, Zach’s voice broke the quiet, and it’s tone sounded halfway between true shock and mild bemused surprise. 

“Huh.” he said, and none of them even bothered to respond.  
  


* * *

  
It didn’t take long for the group of them to snap back to their senses, and once they had, Gin turned to John.

“Let’s go find Hideo’s pack.” he said urgently and the Shepherd nodded in agreement. 

Then the Akita turned and ran back into the forest away from the road, John and Akame at his either side and the others following close behind. 

“What the hell was that?!” Kurotora asked in a shaken, almost angry sounding voice and John saw Akame glance over his shoulder at him.

“I don’t know!” he responded as he ran. “But that dog looked sick! Whatever did that to him could affect Hideo’s pack if we don’t warn them!”

“Are your trips always this exciting?” Zach asked from where he ran by Chutora and Kurotora looked over at him.

“You’d be surprised.” he said and the Malamute gave an almost amused nod, keeping up with the rest of them surprisingly easily. 

“Where’s Hideo’s base, Kais?” John asked from the front and Chutora said:

“It should be right up here!”

Gin sped up their pace upon hearing this and sure enough, they emerged into a clearing seconds later, seeing the Kanagawa pack’s home base resting at one end of it. The minute they had, they all came to an abrupt halt, their jaws dropping. Chutora stepped forward, looking even more shocked than before. 

“W-What...?” he stammered, and the others didn’t respond. 

Dead dogs lay scattered around the clearing, some half torn apart and some almost untouched, all in various stages of decomposition. It was Hideo and the Kanagawa clan. John found himself a little repulsed as he looked around at them. It was clear that they had been dead for some time, and the more he looked at their wounds, the more bizarre the situation became. On his right, he saw a dog that appeared to have blinded himself with his own claws, slashing his own eyes out until he bled to death. A few feet away was another one that had no face left, having smashed it into a nearby tree repeatedly until he fractured his skull. Then he heard a moan of shock and looked over to see Chutora and Kurotora standing over something on the other side of the clearing. When he went over himself, he saw another body that he assumed was Hideo himself, his eyes wide open in terror and no apparent wounds on him. He turned to Akame, who had walked up at the same time as him. 

“What killed him, Akame?” he asked and the ninja-dog shook his head, sniffing at the corpse.

“I don’t know.” he said. “It doesn’t look like he was even touched. It could be a heart attack.”

“That doesn’t explain the rest of this.” Zach said, looking much less enthused by the situation then he had before.

“Oh, now you want to help?” John said, looking at him as though he were a nuisance he had just noticed.

The Malamute gestured to the rest of the clearing with his muzzle.

“Have you seen this shit?” he demanded. “This isn’t normal! This guy over here impaled himself on a tree branch…through the fucking **ear**! Something caused this and I’d rather be safe than **dead**.”

“Of course something caused this!” Kurotora snapped crossly, looking shaken at Hideo’s death. “But what?!”

“Hold it.” Gin said suddenly and they all turned to him. “You smell that?”

Frowning in surprise, John sniffed at the air at the same time the others did, pulling back a little seconds later. There was indeed a strange smell in the air, and it wasn’t the stench of the decomposition of the bodies around them. Glancing over at the others, John saw Akame over by one side of the clearing. 

“It’s coming from this way.” he said urgently, looking back at them. 

Then he kept walking in that direction and the rest of them followed him, all of them sticking close in case something happened. Eventually, after walking up a steep incline, they came to an open area, and immediately saw something very disturbing in their sight. Down the other side of the incline in a small valley, looking very ominous and threatening despite being at least a mile away, was a human building. Surrounding it on every side were barbed wire fences and inside their perimeter, more dead dogs lay decomposing, some already nothing but bone and shed fur. 

“They must have been the guard dogs,” Akame said. “That looks like one of those labs humans have where they experiment on animals.”

Chutora shook his head in disbelief from a few feet over.

“What the hell happened in this territory?” he said. “I never heard a word from Hideo about there being trouble.”

Then John spoke up.

“I don’t know, but maybe **that** has something to do with it.”

They all turned and followed his gaze and immediately tensed up when they saw it. In the side of the building there was a gaping hole, and pouring out of it, disappearing as it hit the air outside, was a green gas, its sheer amount suggesting that it was spreading in all directions and permeating every part of the territory around the facility. 

“What **is** that?” Zach asked and Gin shook his head.

“Nothing good…” he said, then turned to the others. “We should get out of this territory fast.”

Akame nodded.

“I agree.” he said. “We’re putting ourselves in danger just by staying here. We leave on your command, leader.”

“Consider it given.” Gin said and the group of them turned and walked quickly back down the incline the way they’d come, moving immediately towards the Southern border of the territory. 

Suddenly, Kurotora stumbled a little, and John looked back at him in concern as the Kai dog righted his balance.

“Kuro,” he said. “You okay?”

“Yeah, keep going.” Kurotora said, shaking his head a little. “This smell is just making me a little dizzy.”

“Same here.” Zach commented from where he stood and John kept his mouth shut, not wanting to admit that he too was feeling a little lightheaded. 

Then, the Shepherd turned his attention back to where he was going…and nearly ran right into Gin, who had come to a dead stop in the middle of the path in front of them. Akame skidded to a halt, seeing this. 

“Gin,” he said. “What is it?”

As John looked at the Akita’s face, he grew increasingly concerned. Gin’s eyes were wide and shocked and he looked like he had seen a ghost, but at the part of the trees he was looking at, there was nothing. The German Shepherd moved around to Gin’s front.

“Gin?” he said. “What’s wrong? What are you looking at?”

The young leader seemed to look right past him and when he spoke, his voice was shaky.

“F-Father?” he said softly and the others pulled back in surprise. 

“Father?!” John barked. “What do you mean – …father.”

Then he trailed off, and John felt his breath catch in his throat. Over Gin’s shoulder and behind Akame, standing motionless at the tree line on the other edge of their path, was another German Shepherd…one that looked a lot like him. John nearly trembled despite himself.

“Dad…?” he whispered in disbelief, then said. “Th-That’s not possible…”

Suddenly, the other German Shepherd turned and walked back into the trees away from them, disappearing moments later, and John grunted in surprise. 

“Wait!” he yelled and ran after him, hearing Gin take off running in the opposite direction as he did. 

Then he was out of sight. Zach, meanwhile, looked around at his new companions in increasing confusion. He frowned.

“What the hell is wrong with you people?” he asked and looked over at them, expecting a retort of some kind. 

It didn’t come and no one was listening. He saw Kurotora and Chutora suddenly running in different directions into the trees as well, both yelling “Brother, wait!” at no one, while Akame leapt clear over him and ran back the way they came, shouting “Kirikaze! Hayato!” like his life depended on it. Zach whipped his head around, realizing that he was now alone.

“WHAT’S GOING ON?!” he yelled, but no one was there to answer.   
  


* * *

  
“Wait!” John yelled again as he crashed through the underbrush after the vanishing figure. “Father!” 

The Ohu warrior hadn’t felt that shaken in a long time. His father, who’s name had been Will, had died years ago when John was just out of adolescence, and though the moody German Shepherd had never gotten along with his father that well, he had gone to pay his respects anyway, and had seen his grave personally when he had. That was why it was absolutely impossible for his father to have been standing there, and he found himself wondering who this newcomer was that looked so much like his own flesh and blood. Suddenly, he emerged from the trees he was running through, and nearly ran head-on into the dog he had been chasing, who had come to a stop dead in the middle of his path. John skidded to a halt quickly, stopping mere inches away…and got a good look at him for the first time. When he did, he felt his stunned shock return. There was no imposter in front of him. It was indeed his long dead father, Will. The elder Shepherd looked at him calmly, his expression unreadable.

“Hello, John.” he said and his voice sounded strangely distant.

For a moment, John’s voice failed him, and he felt embarrassed by his lack of composure in that moment. 

“D-Dad…” he said shakily. “How are – You can’t possibly be – ”

“You see me don’t you?” came the answer, and John managed a frown.

“But you’re dead.” he said, his shock still clearly audible. “I saw your grave.”

“You don’t look half bad, boy.” Will said, seemingly ignoring him as he looked him over. “Your mother would be proud. I, on the other hand, am **amazed** you’re still alive.”

John’s next question died in his throat.

“What?” he asked, his tone one of confusion.

Will looked him in the eye.

“I figured that temper of yours would’ve gotten you killed a long time ago.” he said in a cold, disapproving voice. “I’m just surprised that it hasn’t.”

John felt a wounded, indignant anger shoot through him, and he growled slightly. His temper had always been a sore spot between him and his father, and it had led to many unpleasant exchanges in the past. 

“Father,” he said shakily. “I don’t want to do this. Not now. Now tell me how you’re here.”

Will shook his head, a small knowing smirk appearing on his muzzle.

“You haven’t changed a bit, John.” he said. “You still have that same arrogant tone in your voice that you did as a pup. I should’ve known you would never change.”

“Dad, shut up.” John threatened, feeling very angry and hurt.

“And you wonder why your mother and I were so willing to give you away to that human.”

“SHUT UP!”

“I don’t see any friends with you, boy.” Will spat, looking around him. “Or do you even have any? It was always a wonder to me how anyone could even tolerate having you around.”

That’s what made John snap. With a roar of fury, he lunged at his father, teeth bared and ready to strike…and went clear through him. Suddenly, before he could even begin to fathom what had happened, the ground beneath him was gone and he was falling, a vast, dark blue ocean rising up to meet him from far below. John let out a yelp of fear and grabbed at something that he saw out of the corner of his eye desperately. It was a protruding tree root, and as his jaws closed tightly around it, his body smashed against the rock face that it was jutting out of and he dangled, his paws having absolutely no surface to grab onto. 

‘SHIT!’ he thought as his mind raced. ‘What the fuck just happened? I went **through** him! How the hell is this happening? And where did this cliff come from?”

Suddenly, his mind flashed back to the human building they had just seen as a group and the green gas that had been coming out of it. At the same time, he remembered the behavior of the first dog they’d seen and everything came together in his mind. 

‘It’s not real.’ he thought. ‘Somehow…it’s all in our minds!’

As he thought this, he saw his father’s head suddenly look over the edge of the cliff down at him. The elder Shepherd smirked.

“You see?” he said. “There’s that temper of yours again. Why don’t you save the world a lot of grief, John, and just let go?”

Short of killing his spirit, this insult filled John with a new determination, and he reached and kicked with his hind legs at the nearby rock face, getting a grip after a few failed tries. Then he put his front paws on the root, dug his claws into the cliff side, and kicked off as hard as he could, sailing up and back onto solid ground seconds later. Then, panting slightly, he looked at his father.

“Never,” he said angrily. “My friends need me. Gin needs me. And you’re not my father.”

Will frowned as an evil smile crept across his muzzle.

“Fool.” he said. “I’m exactly who you think I am.”

John, however, wasn’t listening, and had already run off back the way he’d come, away from the cliff his father had led him to. 

‘We have to get out of here.’ he thought fearfully. ‘These visions drove Hideo and his clan mad. I have to find the others and we have **got** to get out of this place!’  
  


* * *

  
‘They’re dead! How could they be here?! It’s impossible!’

These thoughts flashed repeatedly through Akame’s head as he ran, and he looked around him in desperation as he lost sight of his two former ninja clan subordinates. The powerful, dependable Kirikaze, who could’ve been the Iga clan leader one day, and the shy, gentle Hayato, who had been no great warrior, but Akame had loved him almost most of all. Their appearance to him had come as such a total shock that he had temporarily forgotten about Gin and John and their own bizarre behavior right before his departure from the rest of them. At this point though, they were no longer his priority, and he continued to chase the white furred backsides of his two former comrades into the trees, watching as they suddenly disappeared right as he approached a clearing that they had passed through earlier. Akame skidded to a halt, his head whipping around.

“Kirikaze!” he yelled. “Hayato! Where are you?!”

There was no answer.

“Kirikaze!!” he shouted louder. “Haya– ”

Suddenly, he stopped in mid-word. The two of them had walked out from behind a nearby tree, both looking unscathed and not a day older than he had last known them. Akame felt himself trembling as they walked slowly towards him.

“Boss…” Kirikaze said, his voice almost ethereal sounding. “I’m glad to see you.”

“I’m glad you’re alive.” Hayato said, his tail wagging slightly. “We both really wanted to see you again.”

Akame felt joy enter him the like of which he hadn’t felt in a long time.

“How are you here?” he said, unable to contain his laugh of happiness. “How are you still alive?”

Kirikaze smiled at him.

“We’re not.” he said. “We’re both dead and rotting.”

Akame felt all the happiness in him die on the spot. A frown formed on his muzzle and he looked back and forth between them.

“Wh-What?” he stammered and Kirikaze took a step towards him.

“I said.” he replied slowly, his voice now ice cold and malevolent sounding. “We’re dead…and rotten.”

“And it’s all thanks to you, Akame-san.” Hayato said, still wearing the same smile as before, only now it looked nothing short of creepy to Akame.

The elder ninja-dog took a step backwards, a sudden fear entering him.

“Then how are –? You can’t be – ” he said and Kirikaze cut him off.

“Do you know how it feels to die, sir?” he asked and Akame couldn’t find the words to respond. “It hurts. It hurts so much.”

“I was afraid, Boss.” Hayato said, and his face now looked sad. “I died afraid, alone, and in pain…and you didn’t save me.”

Akame clenched his eyes shut, shaking his head and turning his face to the ground.

“This can’t be real.” he said to himself. “It can’t be…”

“Why didn’t you save me, Boss?” Hayato asked with a whimper and Akame felt tears begin sliding down his cheeks.

He didn’t even get a chance to respond before Kirikaze jumped in as well.

“So you **do** have a heart.” he snorted, his voice almost taunting. “Imagine that.”

Akame’s eyes went wide, and he suddenly realized what was going on, despite how badly the comment had stung him. 

‘That gas.’ he thought. ‘It’s that gas! It’s messing with our heads, playing on our fears! That’s what happened to that first dog we saw! That’s what happened to **everyone** in this territory! Shit! We have to get out of here!’

Akame turned, and he immediately began running back towards where their group had parted ways. Suddenly, though, Kirikaze and Hayato were running on either side of him, passing clear through trees as he went around them. No matter how much he wanted to, he couldn’t block them out.

“Don’t leave us, Boss!” Hayato pleaded. “Not again!”

“You were responsible for our safety.” Kirikaze said viciously from his other side. “You **failed** us. You failed us **all**.”

Akame closed his eyes again, trying desperately to close them out, but suddenly ran right into a tree and fell back with a painful ‘THUD’, his forehead bleeding. Groaning slightly, he pushed himself shakily to his paws, and once he had gotten his bearings, after pausing for a minute to calm himself a little, he began walking forward in a determined, deliberate saunter.

“I’m Akame of Iga.” he said aloud to himself, trying to keep his mind in the present. “I have a duty to my friends.”

“Was bringing Kurojaki to justice really worth our lives?” Kirikaze asked, reappearing beside him. “Was it worth everything that happened?”

“The first law of the ninja-dog,” Akame said, trying to ignore their voices. “Is to always put your mission first.”

“I called for you.” Hayato’s voice said from beside him. “I begged you to come. You abandoned me, boss!”

“The second law of the ninja-dog – ”

“LOOK AT ME!” Kirikaze screamed suddenly in his ear. “LOOK WHAT YOU DID!”

“ – is to remain faithful to your clan and comrades.”

“NOOOO!!”

Akame snapped back to the present instantly. The yell had come from nearby, and he had recognized it instantly. He felt panic seize him. 

“Gin!” he yelled, his eyes going wide. 

Then he took off like a shot, running towards his friend’s voice, hoping that nothing horrible had happened. Beside him, Kirikaze and Hayato ran as well, their continued presence making the ninja-dog’s already frayed nerves keep unraveling. 

“Uh oh, Boss.” Kirikaze said, his voice dripping with contempt. “Sounds like you failed someone else too.”  
  


* * *

  
John’s head whipped back and forth quickly as he ran. He had already gotten back to the spot where they had split up and had been dismayed to find that everyone else had scattered as well, all of them running in different directions and making his job even harder than it needed to be. Thinking quickly though, he had found Gin’s scent with his powerful sense of smell and followed it, hoping it would lead him to his friend. This had worked up until had come to a stream and lost the scent, realizing that Gin, in his delirium, had walked into the water and allowed it to wash away his trail with it as it flowed away through the forest. Unable to find it again after that, John had decided to go back towards where they’d entered the territory to begin with, hoping that no one had been lured towards the building that was causing all this madness. Either way, he knew, he had to work fast. If the effects of the gas got any worse, they could all end up like Hideo and his pack, victims of their own delusions. His own seemed impossible to escape, and the harder he tried, the more he saw his father at every turn, continually taunting him as he began getting desperate in his search. John looked around again, growling more with each step. 

‘Where the hell **is** everyone?’ he thought. ‘They have to around here somewhere?’

Suddenly, he picked up a new scent and stopped in his tracks. Sniffing at it again, he frowned slightly. It was Zach’s scent, and it very recent. John snorted.

‘Terrific.’ he thought sarcastically. ‘Of all people I find **him**. Well…he **is** our responsibility I guess, and it’s better than finding no one.’

“If he pisses you off, why don’t you just kill him, _son_?” Will’s voice said smirkingly from behind him as if reading his mind. “You know you want to. Besides, it would be par for the course in John-land.”

“Fuck you.” John spat back, and sprinting forward, began following the trail, which took him past the human lab building and back towards the road where the first dog was killed in front of them.

Eventually, it entered his sights and he saw someone walking right at it, stumbling slightly and shaking his head as if trying to clear it. 

“Zach!” he yelled, recognizing him, but the Malamute didn’t hear him. 

John ran towards him again, and as soon as he did, he saw movement on his left, further down on the road from where they were. Glancing to see what it was, he saw immediately that it was a car, it’s speed making it hard to follow as it disappeared and reappeared in his view a couple times from behind trees and rocks. What he **could** tell though, was that it was heading right for where Zach was walking. He ran faster. 

“Zach!” he shouted again. “Look out!!”

If the young Malamute heard him that time, he still didn’t acknowledge him, and he stumbled out onto the black concrete of the road before John could stop him. Then the car came flying around the same corner that the first one had, and John panicked, putting on a sudden burst of speed. What happened next surprised even him. Jumping into the air, John lunged and tackled the Malamute before the car could hit him, sending the two of them rolling down the slope on the other side into the trees, coming to rest with the German Shepherd on top, pinning the younger dog on his back by the shoulders. Then John looked down at him.

“Zach!” he said, but the Malamute was looking right past him, and John saw tear streaks beneath his eyes.

“No…” he mumbled. “It’s not my fault…I did what I thought was right…”

“Zach!” he barked urgently, shaking him a little. “Snap out of it!”

The younger dog finally saw him then and looked up at him, but was still clearly under the gas’s influence. 

“I-I can’t c-concentrate.” Zach responded, clenching his eyes shut and shaking his head hard. “They just – they won’t – SHUT UP!!”

The last words he screamed at an empty clearing to the side and John shook him harder, realizing that he must have been seeing his father and younger brother. 

“Listen to me,” he demanded. “They are **not** real! Don’t listen to them! They. Are. Not. Real!”

“Of course we are.” Will taunted from beside them, but John kept his focus on Zach. 

“No…” the younger dog moaned. “They won’t shut up! They’re talking in my head a-and – ”

Suddenly, John reared back and smacked Zach across the face with his paw hard, making the Malamute’s head snap sideways before he looked back at him in shock, his eyes a little clearer somehow. John pinned him fully again.

“You feel that?” he snapped, looking Zach right in the eyes. “That was **real**! That was something I’ve wanted to do to you for the past week and it was **real**! **They** aren’t real! They’re an illusion, a hallucination! You hear me? Don’t listen to anything they say!”

Zach looked conflicted and his eyes darted back and forth as he took in the Shepherd’s words. John grabbed his head with both paws and turned it to face him forcibly. 

“Do you hear me?” he demanded. “Don’t listen to them! Nod if you understand!”

Zach paused for a second, then nodded quickly, looking very shaken by everything that was happening. 

“Good.” John said, releasing his pin and getting off him. “Now you listen, kid. We have to get Gin and the others and get out of here fast, but I can’t do that alone. I need you to watch my back and not let this gas affect me, and I’ll do the same for you. But you’d better be ready, because this won’t be easy.”

As Zach looked at him, John saw Will walk around behind him, an almost triumphant smirk on his face.

“You want to tell him how much he reminds you of yourself, John,” he asked. “Or should I?”

John gripped the ground hard in fury with his claws, and kept his eyes fixed on Zach’s as the Malamute stared at him, looking half surprised, and half in awe at his words.

“Why me?” he asked.

“Because I don’t know where anyone else is, and you’re all I’ve got.” John responded, not having time to mince words. “And because somewhere beneath that irritating as fuck exterior of yours, there’s a real male, and I need him right now.”

Zach broke their met gaze and stared down at the ground, looking as if he were contemplating the Shepherd’s words. Seeing this, John spoke again.

“Show me.” he said, and the Malamute looked at him again. “Show me right now that you’re worthy to stand with us, to be a soldier of Ohu.”

Zach gaped at him for a second, then got a more determined look on his face and rose to his feet, wincing a little from the fall as he did. He smirked slightly at John as he did.

“Your ego is showing again.” he teased and the Shepherd snorted.

“I’ll bite you for that remark later.” he said, allowing a small grin to creep across his muzzle. “For now, let’s go.”

Zach nodded, then John saw him turn and look back at the empty clearing he had yelled at moments before. 

“I’m sorry.” he said softly. 

Then he turned and followed John and they both ran off together, back to where the others needed their help.   
  


* * *

  
For a minute or two after he ran away from where he had been, Akame wasn’t sure where Gin’s voice had come from. There was no scent trail that he could follow, and the Akita hadn’t made any other sounds since the one that he’d heard, so all Akame had to go on was his own eyesight. He was very worried for his friend, fearing what could’ve happened to him under the influence of the gas, and the more he didn’t find him, the more desperate he got. Skidding to a halt amongst a group of trees, Akame looked around him, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. 

“Gin!” he yelled. “Gin!!”

“A-Akame?!” came a faint return voice, and Akame shot off towards it, realizing instantly that it was Gin. 

A few hundred feet later, the ninja-dog saw the Akita, off near a grove on his left, leaning his forehead against a tree. He immediately ran over to him, stopping when he was right beside him. 

“Gin!” he said. “Are you okay?”

The Akita glanced at him, and Akame could see that he was trembling slightly. 

“Akame?” he responded. “Wh-Why are – Don’t say that! Please don’t!”

He had turned and shouted at the empty space to his right before he could even finish his thought, and Akame knew that he needed to act fast. 

“Leader,” he said, “There’s no one there.”

“I-I know…” Gin responded shakily. “But he – they – ”

Suddenly, he growled and turned his whole head away from Akame and yelled hoarsely:

“That’s not true! I wanted to save you, father!!”

Akame pulled back a little with a look of shock. 

‘He’s seeing Riki!’ he thought, ‘This could be harder than I thought.’

He pushed his friend away from the tree a little and jumped in front of him, putting a paw on his shoulder as he forced him to look at him. 

“Gin,” he said. “You have to fight it! Your father isn’t there!”

“How is this – this happening?” Gin asked, clearly trying not to listen to the hallucinations as he did.

“It’s that gas!” Akame answered, staring right back at him and trying to ignore Kirikaze and Hayato right next to him. “From the human building. It’s causing this! I think it’s bringing our own guilt to life, our own fears! It’s making us face them in the form of the people we want to see the most. But you **have** to fight it!”

Gin shook his head hard and took a deep breath. Then he closed his eyes.

“I am the leader of Ohu.” he said, his voice nearly breaking anyway. “I have a responsibility to my friends…No…I had to kill him…”

Then Akame saw a tear trace its way down the younger dog’s cheek and he realized that not only must Riki still have been taunting him, he was still reliving the guilt of killing Heizo the assassin only a short time ago. Akame leaned his head against the Akita’s in a rare display of physical comfort and held him in place with his front leg, making sure that he didn’t go anywhere.

“Gin,” he said gently. “Whatever your father is saying to you, don’t listen to any of it. It isn’t him. You are one of the greatest leaders I have ever known, and I know that your father would be proud of you. And as for what happened with Heizo, you had **no** **choice**. You hear me? You had no other choice.”

“I didn’t mean to kill him.” Gin responded in an equally soft tone. “He wasn’t like Gaia or Sniper or Shuga. I didn’t have to kill him…”

“Gin,” Akame said again. “I know it’s hard, but you can’t save everyone. You just can’t.”

As he talked, Akame looked over and saw Hayato and Kirikaze standing a few feet away, now just staring at him instead of taunting, a sad look on the former’s face. Then he kept going.

“Believe me,” the ninja-dog said, feeling his own eyes begin to water again. “I wish you could. But that just isn’t the way the world works.”

After a pause, he heard Gin say.

“I know…”

Then he pulled back a little, getting a better look at him as he did. 

“Then we need to find John and the others and get out of here now.” he said and Gin stood up straighter, nodding after shaking his head again. 

“Let’s…” he said, pausing for a moment to think. “Let’s head back to that clearing where we all split up in the first place. Maybe they’re there already.”

Akame nodded at him, then turned and began to move off in that direction, feeling Gin right beside him as he did. He glanced over at him in concern as they ran.

“You okay, Gin?” he asked and the Akita looked over at him with a slightly forced smile.

“I will be.” he responded and Akame, though not entirely convinced, felt relieved anyway.

At the speed they were going, it didn’t take them long to get back to the original clearing where all the trouble had begun, and once they had, they trotted to a halt. Akame was about to ask Gin what his orders were when he heard:

“Gin! Akame!”

Turning immediately towards it, the Kishu saw John emerge from the trees on the clearing’s other side, flanked by Zach, Kurotora, and Chutora, all of them looking a little ragged but still in one piece. Gin’s face seemed to light up a little as he saw them.

“John!” he said. “You’re all okay?”

John didn’t answer, but Kurotora said in a hoarse voice.

“None of us will be okay if we don’t get out of this hell hole fast!”

“Agreed.” the Akita said. “And now that we’re all here, we’re going to make a run for the Southern border. But while we run we **stick together**. Concentrate on each other and the path in front of you. If someone starts to lag behind, we all slow down together and help them.”

They all turned their heads towards Zach as he said this, but the Malamute shook his head once.

“Don’t worry about me.” he said. “I can keep up easily. Worry about yourselves.”

This seemed to satisfy the rest of them and they turned to Gin, who motioned for them to come up next to him. When they were, he said:

“Let’s go.”

At this, they all broke into a run, and began jumping around trees and over small bushes in their path, occasionally glancing over at each other to make sure the others were still okay. It didn’t take long, though, for Akame to sense another presence beside him once more, and glancing over, he saw exactly who he expected to.

“Leaving us behind again, are you boss?” Kirikaze said. “I never should’ve trusted you!”

“Don’t leave us, Akame-san!” Hayato whimpered. “Please don’t leave again!”

Akame clenched his jaw tightly as he tried to contain his emotions, but then he looked over at Kirikaze.

“You were right.” he said and the other ninja-dog met his gaze. “I **did** fail you. That war was never a life I wanted for either of you. But I swear to you this…I won’t fail them.”

Kirikaze said nothing, and Akame turned to Hayato.

“Goodbye.” he said.

Then he kept running with Gin and the others, glancing over his shoulder long enough to see that both Kirikaze and Hayato had vanished, and the woods were once again empty. After a little while longer, they arrived at the Southern border of the Kanagawa territory, all of them coming to a stop as they did, most of them panting a little from the effort of the long run. Then Kurotora looked up at them.

“He’s gone.” he said, and his voice sounded relieved. “They’re gone.”

“We’re out of range of the gas.” John said, looking like a great burden had been lifted from his shoulders. “I think we should be fine now.”

“Send word to every pack you can.” Gin said to them from his position. “Avoid this territory at all costs. No one is to come near it again.”

“Yes leader.” Chutora said and John walked up to Gin’s side from where he had been. 

“Where to now, Gin?” he asked and Gin looked at him.

“We should meet up with Smith, Great, and Wilson in Yamanashi.” he said. “We’ll figure out where to go from there.”

John nodded and started to turn and walk off, pausing for a moment though when he saw Gin turn back to look one last time at the Kanagawa territory.

“Bye Dad.” the Akita said softly, and John looked down at the ground, not wanting to intrude and thinking of his own father for a final time as well. 

Then Gin turned and kept going on their path, heading into the Yamanashi territory as he did, and the others followed close behind. As they did, John glanced over at Zach, who was walking beside him on his right.

“You still want to go home, kid?” he asked and the Malamute looked up at him, his face appearing to be halfway between the defiantness of before and a new look of near admiration.

“I…” he said, then paused, making John turn his full attention to him. “I…don’t know.”

John smirked at him.

“Good answer.” he said kindly, then turned back to the path, leaving Kanagawa behind him once and for all.


	4. Story 4 - The "Great" One

The wind was stronger than normal today. Daian shivered as it blew into the sanctuary of her cave home, rustling her black fur and chilling her to the bone. Glancing outside, she sniffed at the air and tried to pick up the scent of her 3 pups. They should’ve been back from their hunt 15 minutes ago, and the Labrador was just about ready to go and look for them. 

‘Those kids…’ she thought affectionately, with just a touch of exasperation, ‘I knew I shouldn’t have let them hunt on their own this early. They get so easily distracted.’

Stretching her legs tiredly, a result of the nap she’d been taking, she stood and got ready to head out. Maybe she was being overprotective, she thought, but given the proximity of where they lived to the humans, who lived not far to the west from where they were, she didn’t want to take any chances. The humans didn’t usually bother them, or the other strays of the area for that matter, and aside from the building where they took dogs that were violent or problematic, there was very little that she had to worry about in the Nagano prefecture. Still though, she wanted to be sure, especially with her 3 bundles of energy in the stage of their puppy hood where they loved exploring and examining everything. Dismissing the thoughts from her mind, she walked forward towards the cave entrance…and nearly ran right into a dog that she hadn’t seen walk up. 

“Excuse me, miss?” he said and she jumped back with a yelp of surprise.

“Who are **you**?” she asked warily and he shot her a disarming smile.

“Sorry for startling you.” he said. “It’s just that I need directions. I’m from up at Keji. I don’t know this area too well.”

“Keji?” she repeated, looking him over as she did. “The animal laboratory? Why are you all the way down here?”

“There was an escape this morning.” he said gravely. “A number of pretty bad dogs got away. We found your pups wandering around and thought we should bring them back before something happened.”

At that, 3 tiny, black furred pups shot around the corner and ran up to her, barking excitedly and talking at once to her. Daian smiled in relief, licking each one of them before turning back to the dog, who still wore a smile on his muzzle. He was a Beauceron, she saw, and was relatively handsome, despite the numerous scars that adorned his back, face, and chest. She nodded gratefully at him.

“Thank you.” she said. “But do you think those dogs are down around here, um…”

“Toraji.” he offered, then added. “And we’re not sure. We’re looking everywhere we can think of. Have you seen any suspicious dogs around here lately? Any dogs at all?”

“Just a few pets from the local human village.” Daian said with a frown. “No one I didn’t recognize.”

“Ah.” he responded, then looked at someone out of her line of sight. “No luck, guys. I guess we’ll just have to move on.”

The moment he finished saying it, another whole group of dogs came up to him from the same direction, and he turned back to her as she tensed up, not being used to having this many unknown males around. 

“Forgive us for disturbing you then, miss.” Toraji said with a courteous nod, then started to turn away.

One of her male pups, though, who always had been very curious, leapt forward with his tail wagging.

“Mr. Toraji!” he called, and when the dog turned back said. “Do you **really** deal with bad dogs? I mean really ugly, nasty dogs?”

“Jonasu.” Daian scolded. “Don’t pry.”

“It’s all right.” Toraji said with a laugh. “Yeah, kid, I do. We all do.”

“What’s it like? How bad are they?”

“They’re pretty bad guys.” came the answer. “Not the kind you want to grow up to be. There’s one I know who actually **ate** another dog alive!”

Daian gasped softly, shocked that Toraji would say something like that to a pup. Before she could say anything though, Jonasu jumped in again, his two sisters looking just as fascinated at his side.

“Eww!” he said making a face. “How do you know?”

Toraji flashed him the same disarming smile as before.

“Because he was my cellmate.” he said.

Daian went numb. She looked up at the Beauceron, who now smiled back at her with a glare that looked very predatory. She took a step back.

“What?!” she said, certain she had heard wrong. “B-But you said – ”

“I said I was from Keji.” he said, his voice suddenly cold. “I never said I worked there.”

Trembling, Daian reached up and pushed her children back behind her roughly, all three of them complaining, looking confused as to what was going on. 

“P-Please,” she said in a shaky voice. “We don’t want any trouble. We just want to be left alone.”

Toraji tilted his head to the side, cracking his neck.

“I wanted that once too.” he said. “Ask me how it worked out.” 

Then, after studying her for a moment, he looked down at the ground.

“I’ll make you a deal.” he said. “Tell me where the Ohu army resides these days and you’ll never see me again. Cross my heart.”

“Ohu?” she said, startled. “They’re up in Futago Pass. They have been since that war of theirs ended.”

“All of them?”

“W-Well, last I heard, a few of them were traveling down near here somewhere, including Gin himself. That’s just a rumor though.”

“Tell me,” Toraji said, glaring unblinkingly at her. “Is one of them named ‘Great’?”

“I-I don’t know.” she answered.

He nodded, then smiled again.

“See?” he said. “That’s all there is to it. You did good!”

“So you’ll let us go?”

“No.” he said bluntly and she froze again.

“But y-you said – ”

“I said you’d never see me again.” he responded as the other 5 dogs with him walked slowly into the cave at her. “I never said that me leaving would be the reason why.”

“P-Please…!”

“Sorry.” he said with a snort. “Witnesses and all that. Nothing personal.”

Then he turned and walked away, hearing loud screams and whines of agony erupt from the cave behind him, the voices big and small amidst the snarls. Looking north, Toraji kept his pace steady, his blood-spattered comrades swiftly falling in behind him, their work done. He gritted his fangs, the face of an old friend entering his mind. 

“Nothing personal.” he repeated.  
  


* * *

  
Great yawned, stretching as he awoke to find that the sun was already up, shining its new light down onto their backs. The rest of the group was still asleep, he saw, and he gave a silent snort as he looked over at them. He, Smith, and Wilson had met up with Gin and the others shortly after they had crossed into the Yamanashi territory, and from there they had made their way Northwest into the Nagano Prefecture, a large area that none of them knew very well. While he and his two companions had been fine, though, Gin and the others had looked exhausted, and the moment they entered the territory, they had stopped for the night to sleep, flopping to the ground and dozing off right after Gin had told the three of them that they would tell them what happened to them tomorrow. The Great Dane had accepted this, and had taken the opportunity to see if anything had changed since they had last seen each other. 

Ever since Gin had taken over Ben’s position back when they were gathering soldiers for the war against Akakabuto, Great had felt like something of an outsider. They were his friends, sure, but they seemed to get along better with each other than with him, and only Smith seemed to talk to him much anymore, which meant that he had to check up on them himself, making sure that they were okay without them telling him anything. Part of it was just the platoon leader in him still asserting itself, he knew, but another part of it was sheer curiosity. While the whole group had seemed tired, they appeared otherwise to be quite normal, and in fact had seemed to be a good deal happier than they were when Great and his group left. They talked to each other more frequently now, which was in stark contrast to the time right after they’d left Ibaraki, and each seemed to be making a distinct effort to boost their morale. What shocked him, Smith, and Wilson the most though, was their newfound acceptance of Zach, the group’s “prisoner”. 

The last Great had seen, the Malamute had been hated pretty much by everyone, and had returned their animosity in an even greater amount. Now, though, the others seemed to get along with him quite well, and though they were still stern to him on more than one occasion, reminding him that he **was** still their prisoner, they didn’t snap at him almost at all anymore, and included him in their group discussions. Perhaps most surprising to him though, was the relationship Zach now had with John. Out of all of his friends, Great had assumed that John would be the one who would hate Zach the most, and would end up fighting with him at every turn. Instead, they seemed to be getting along surprisingly well, and though they **did** seem to constantly bicker and weren’t exactly “friends”, Great could tell it was all in good fun and that they were no longer out to hurt each other…most of the time anyway. Just before they had all gone to sleep, he had seen the two of them teasing each other like old comrades, and he silently wondered what the hell **had** happened to the group in Kanagawa that had brought them so much closer together. 

Shaking his head, the Great Dane stepped carefully over the sleeping Wilson and moved silently off into the trees that surrounded where their group had decided to stop and rest. There was a small stream a few hundred yards in this direction, he knew, and it was perfect for quenching his thirst before they moved on. As soon as he reached it, listening instinctively for any presence besides his own, he bent down and lapped at the cool water, still blinking sleep out of his eyes as he did. 

“There you are! I was wondering where you went.”

Great whirled around toward the voice with a grunt of surprise, falling into the water as he did. As soon as he found its source, he frowned with an irritated snort. Smith stood on the bank of the stream right behind him, smiling amusedly at his comrade’s antics and looking thoroughly pleased with himself. Great scowled slightly.

“Smith, you pest!” he said. “Next time warn me.”

“But then I wouldn’t have gotten to see that.” the Spaniel grinned, then leaned down and lapped at the water as well. “Cool off. I came to tell you that the others are waking up. We should be heading out pretty soon.”

Great nodded, stepping out of the stream.

“Got it.” he said.

Then he turned and sat down on the steam’s bank, looking up at the sky as if examining it. Smith turned back from where he had started to walk away, having noticed this. 

“Hey, what’s with you recently?” he asked with a concerned frown. “You’ve been acting all brooding ever since we left Gajou. Why?”

The Great Dane shrugged.

“Lot of thoughts just going through my head I guess.” he said. “This journey’s not much of a soldier’s work.”

“Maybe not.” Smith responded thoughtfully. “But it’s necessary. They **were** our comrades after all.”

Great nodded, only half listening to him.

“Remember the old days?” he asked suddenly and the Spaniel looked at him in confusion. “Back when it was just you, me, and Ben as the Boss’s platoon leaders? A couple subordinates each and that was it?”

Smith gave a snorting laugh.

“Yeah.” he said. “God, that feels like a lifetime ago.”

“I think we’re getting too old for all of this.” Great grinned, standing again.

“We’re only like 6.” Smith said with another laugh, standing as well. “Besides, if **we’re** old, what does that make Ben…or Akame?”

“Younger in mind than in body.” came a new voice and the duo turned to see the Kishu striding up, an amused smile on his normally stoic face. 

He stopped and gestured with his head. 

“Everyone’s up.” he said. “The leader wants to leave immediately.”

Great nodded and so did Smith.

“Let’s go then.” he said, and they followed Akame back through the trees to where everyone else was waiting.  
  


* * *

  
It didn’t take long for them to move out after that, and soon enough, the 9 of them had moved further into the Nagano Prefecture, Gin keeping the pace steady at the front with John and Akame. Great walked in the middle of the group, and kept his eyes open for any sign of trouble that might pose a threat to the leader’s safety. That was, after all, his primary job as a direct subordinate, and he took it seriously. Next to him, Chutora looked up at his three friends leading the way. 

“There’s no one we need to give condolences to here right?” he asked and Gin shook his head. 

“No.” he said and it sounded almost relieved. “Once we get past this territory, we need to stop in the next one.”

“Which is?”

“Toyama.”

“Can we go home then?” Kurotora asked sarcastically from the back of the group and the Akita chuckled.

“Don’t I wish.” he responded, but suddenly, Akame stuck his paw out, stopping him.

“What is it?” Smith asked from behind them, having nearly walked into the Kishu.

“Blood.” John growled softly, having smelled it too. “From right up ahead.”

“Everyone at the ready.” Gin said and they all obeyed. “Let’s check it out.”

With Gin and John at the front, the group slowly walked into the clearing they had just been about to enter. They could smell humans not too far from where they were, but the stench of blood was coming from a small cave on their right. Glancing at each other, Akame and John stuck their heads around the edge of the rock wall and looked into the dim inlet, inhaling sharply in shock seconds later. 

“It’s clear.” the Kishu said, then rushed into the cave quickly, Gin right behind him. 

When he saw where the smell was coming from, Gin too let a small gasp. The remains of a female Labrador and her 3 small pups lay decaying on the stone floor in front of them, their bodies torn into pieces and scattered to every corner of the cave. Zach nosed at one of the dead pups. 

“Who the hell kills kids?” he asked in a disgusted voice and Kurotora stepped up next to him, looking around at the carnage with a similar expression.

“A real fucking coward, that’s who.” he said, and then looked at Smith. “Smith, you’re the tracker here. Any sign of whoever did this?”

Great didn’t hear how Smith responded, as he was busy sniffing around the area himself, looking for any sign of the killer. Suddenly, he caught a new scent and stopped in his tracks. It didn’t belong to anyone there, and yet…it seemed familiar. 

‘I know that scent.’ he thought. ‘Why do I know that scent?’

It was at that moment that a shape lunged from the tree line outside and collided hard with Wilson, tackling him to the ground with a snarl and making the others whirl to look.

“What the – ” Chutora started, but then another figure hit him as well and he was sent rolling with a grunt of pain, trying unsuccessfully to fight back as two more figures jumped on him and started ripping at his flesh. 

Leaping into action, Gin lunged and head-butted the two figures off of him hard, throwing the third one into a tree as John and Akame tackled the fourth off of Wilson, slashing his shoulder with their fangs and sending him flying onto his side before leaping back next to their friends. Then the fight stopped as the two groups faced off, snarling angrily at each other. At the front of the other one was a German Shepherd, his fur a little lighter than John’s, who bared his teeth at the Ohu soldiers. 

“Show me your faces!” he spat. “All of you!”

“Come **make** us you god damn – ” Kurotora started, but Gin cut him off, yelling:

“Everyone quiet!”

This made the Ohu dogs do just that and soon, the other dogs did as well. The leader looked at them warily. Then he turned to his subordinates and said:

“Wait! I think they’re just travelers.”

“I’m Gin of Ohu,” Gin responded, looking cross with the attack. “And you better have a good explanation for attacking my friends.”

“The Ohu Army?!” the leader said in shock, then bowed his head slightly. “Forgive us, we thought you might have been someone else. I’m Asher of Nagano. Our masters sent us out to track down the bastards who did this.”

He gestured with his muzzle back at the cave and for a moment, Gin studied them. Then he tilted his head slightly in wary curiosity.

“You’re police dogs?” he asked and the Shepherd nodded.

“Yeah.” he answered in mild surprise. “We all are.”

Gin nodded and looked at the group that was with Asher, who were all different breeds but looked highly trained. 

“Apology accepted.” he said, calming everyone down. “We just came across it ourselves. Who **was** responsible for that?”

“His name is Toraji.” Asher said, a grave look on his face. “He and 8 other dogs escaped from a medical testing lab a few days ago. These murders bring their kill total up to 7. We’ve been tracking them ever since.”

Great’s stomach fell to his feet. His eyes went wide.

‘Toraji?!’ he thought. ‘Oh god! That’s where I know that scent from! How the hell could I have forgotten?!’

Gin glanced back at the cave. 

“Well,” he said. “I can’t just let this be. Cowards who kill children need to be brought to justice. We’ll help you get him.”

“Thank you,” Asher said, inclining his head at him. “But we can – ”

Then, one of his subordinates nudged him and whispered in his ear. The police dog stiffened visibly and then looked over at Zach, an expression of shock and anger on his face. Then he took a step towards him and looked him right in the eye.

“What’s your name?” he asked sternly. 

Zach frowned in confusion.

“Zach.” he responded. “Why?”

“You’re from Ibaraki, aren’t you?”

The Malamute looked taken aback and glanced over at his equally confused comrades.

“Yes.” he said slowly. “But how’d you know that?”

Suddenly, Asher lunged like a bullet and tackled him onto his back, startling everyone there as he seized him by the throat and started slamming him hard into the ground.

“You murdering son of a bitch!” he snarled and Zach choked as he tried to throw him off, caught totally off guard. 

John and Akame beat him to it though and grabbed Asher with their jaws, yanking him off and throwing him back at his group moments later. After rolling a few times, the Shepherd was back on his feet instantly, but Gin jumped in front of him as well, growling in his face. 

“Enough!” he barked. “If you’re a police dog you should know better than to act like this!”

Asher didn’t back down an inch.

“We know what happened in Ibaraki!” he hissed as his and Gin’s subordinates growled at each other once more. “My cousin disappeared there 2 months ago and never came back! I demand that bastard be taken into custody **now**!”

“He **is** in custody.” Gin replied flatly. “Ours. He’s our responsibility, not yours.”  
  
Asher shook with rage.

“Do you know what he **did**?!” he asked angrily and Akame stepped up as well.

“Of course we do.” he said. “We’re the ones who caught him to begin with. With all due respect Asher, it’s much safer for him to go with us than with you. **We** can handle him better.”

Gin looked the Shepherd in the eye and lowered his voice.

“Please.” he said. “We didn’t come to fight with you. We’re offering to help. Let us.”

Asher looked reluctant for a minute, but then nodded slowly, muttering a half-hearted apology as soon as he did. 

“Very well.” he said. “Follow us. We’ll take you back to where our masters keep us and then we can talk.”

Then he walked up to Zach, growling warningly right in his face.

“But I’m warning you, you piece of shit.” he threatened. “This area is still **my** responsibility. So if you so much as **look** at someone in a way I don’t like, I will personally rip your balls off and shove them down your throat so you choke to death on them! Got it?”

Zach stared at him for a second silently, then shot him wide, mocking smile, a little blood still seeping down his neck from the attack.

“That hurts my feelings.” he smirked and Asher snarled loudly at him again, but Akame quickly stepped between them.

“Stop!” he barked sternly. “This isn’t the time or the place!”

“I agree.” Gin said, walking up. “Asher, let’s go to your base so we can talk about what’s going on.”

Then he turned to Zach with an irritated scowl.

“And Zach,” he said, not bothering to sound courteous. “Don’t be a jerk.”

The Malamute snorted with a grin and John glanced over at Gin as they all fell in behind Asher, who had started to lead them out of the clearing.

“Don’t bother Gin,” the Shepherd said, shooting Zach a teasing glare. “I think that’s his permanent state.” 

“I learned from the master.” Zach responded.

“Not the master **mind**?”

“Hey!” Gin barked, glancing over his shoulder. “I said knock it off, you two!”

“Oh come on, Gin!” Kurotora quipped from the back of the group. “Listening to them fight is the most fun we’ve had on this depressing trip!”

Though it took effort to fight off an amused smile of his own, Gin shook his head.

“I think we’re about to have bigger issues to attend to.” he said. “So this can wait until later.”

Then Asher and his group rounded a curve in the path and the Ohu Army followed, disappearing over a hill as soon as they had.   
  


* * *

  
Toraji cracked his neck again, clenching his teeth together angrily as the dog beneath him let out a gurgling sound, choking slowly to death on his own blood as it seeped into his mangled throat. It was the one cowering in front of him that he was angry with though, and his eyes focused on her again as he looked back up. 

“I’m going to ask you,” he said in a slow, malevolent voice. “One last time: **Where** are they?”

“I-I don’t know!” the female, a Spitz, said. “We never saw them, I promise! Please don’t hurt us!”

The Beauceron narrowed his gaze, his voice raising slightly.

“Babe,” he said. “I have not yet **begun** to hurt you. But if you do not tell me where they went in the next 15 seconds, I am personally going to skin this kid alive IN FRONT OF YOU!! NOW WHERE ARE THEY?!”

“I d-don’t **know**!” the Spitz sobbed, watching as her small pup whined and cried between the jaws of one of the attacking dogs. 

Suddenly, another dog stepped forward, this one a young male Dalmatian.

“Wait!” he said and Toraji’s head whipped to him. “I saw a group of dogs heading out our territory into Nagano yesterday! It might have been them!”

“Was one of them an Akita?”

“Y-Yes sir!”

“Kid,” Toraji said, walking right up to him and narrowing his gaze again. “You better not be lying to me.”

The Dalmatian cowered a little, stumbling back a few steps towards where the bodies of most of the other males of his pack lay in a pile. 

“I’m not, I swear!”

“Are you sure? ‘Cause those who do tend to meet rather unpleasant ends.”

“I p-promise!”

The larger male nodded, his face unreadable. 

“So it’s back to Nagano is it?” he said out loud to no one. “Fine then. Let’s go!”

The last words were to his pack, and one, a heavily scarred Tosa, stepped forward. 

“Sir,” he rumbled. “What should we do with them?”

He gestured to the remaining dogs that were still there and Toraji only glanced at them for a second before looking back at him.

“I direct you back to that talk we had this morning, Katsuro,” he said. “About **witnesses**.”

“Is that really necessary, Toraji-san?”

The Beauceron walked back to him, getting uncomfortably close and glaring into his eyes before half-whispering his response.

“I didn’t spend 2 years getting **tortured** in that place, and dreaming of only one thing the whole time, to have it all unravel because we were careless. I am getting my revenge, Katsuro…one way or another. Now **kill** them.”

“Yes sir.” the Tosa replied and turned back to their captives. 

The screams and howls that came moments later, could be heard for miles.   
  


* * *

  
The building that Asher and his pack were based out of wasn’t nearly as far away as some of the Ohu Dogs had thought it was, so they didn’t have far to walk to get there. It was, however, fenced off, and while every dog there could’ve probably found a way in, Asher chose to remain outside its borders, right on the edge of the forest where the humans wouldn’t notice them. As soon as they got to this spot, the Shepherd turned and sat down, his fellow police dogs doing the same nearby. Gin sat across from him, and as the others followed his example, they saw Asher nod over his shoulder at a relatively unassuming building that was isolated from the rest in the town. It also had fencing, they saw, but this time, it had barbed wire mounted on top. Asher looked back at them.

“That’s Keji.” he said. “It’s where they escaped from. It wasn’t our job to guard them while they were there, but it **is** our job to get them back now.”

“Why were they in there?” Akame asked and the Shepherd looked at him.

“It’s not a pound or prison, despite what you might hear.” he said. “They were test dogs, used for experiments and things like that. Lake Kurobe’s a couple miles outside of town, and the humans use water from it to help make the liquids they inject them with. That’s why the building’s right there.”

“Wait.” Gin said, sitting up straighter. “Did they consent to it?”

Asher paused, looking at one of his subordinates uncomfortably. When he turned back to the Akita, he looked almost ashamed.

“No.” he said.

Kurotora growled slightly and so did John.

“So you messed with them anyway?” he said angrily. “What the hell right did you have to do that?!”

“Look,” Asher said with a sigh. “I may not agree with everything that goes on in there, but it’s our duty as dogs to obey our masters. Besides, these **are** dangerous dogs. I put every one of them in there for a reason.”

“And how much of their being dangerous is your masters’ fault?” Gin asked, sounding almost accusatory. 

Before the Shepherd could answer though, a tiny form leapt out from behind one of the trees, startling the whole group. It was a young German Shepherd pup, only 3-4 months old at the most, and it immediately growled at Gin. 

“My dad’s a good dog!” it yelled at him. “Don’t you insult him!”

The Akita looked a little taken aback by the pup’s sudden appearance and courage, but before he could reply, Asher leapt to his paws.

“Jerome!” he said sternly. “I thought I told you to stay home!”

The pup wagged his tail as he looked at the larger dog.

“I wanted to see you working, Dad.” he said, but Asher bared his teeth angrily.

“When I tell you to do something, I expect you to do it!” he yelled. “Now **go home**!”

Jerome looked hurt, and Gin saw his eyes begin to water a little. Then, nodding slightly, he turned and started to lope sadly away. The Akita silently disapproved of Asher’s handling of the situation, but knew better than to get involved in a family dispute. To his surprise though, the older Shepherd sighed and walked forward, stopping his son with a paw. 

“Jerome,” he said gently as the pup turned his head away. “I’m sorry. I know I said you could watch me, but there are 9 really bad dogs running around somewhere who would like nothing more than to hurt you because you’re my son. I don’t know what I’d do if that happened.”

Jerome nodded again, and buried his face in his father’s leg. Smiling at him affectionately, Asher nosed at the top of his head. 

“Come on now.” he said. “Go on home. You can come another time.”

The pup looked up at him.

“You promise?” he asked hopefully.

“Cross my heart.” Asher said, and Jerome wagged his tail happily. 

Then, with a nudge from his father, he ran off back into the town, Gin and the others smiling silently after him. As soon as he was gone, Asher’s smile faded again.

“Toraji used to say that whenever he’d kill another dog.” he said, turning back to them. “‘Cross my heart’. I feel almost dirty using it with my son.”

“He seems like a good kid.” John replied and Akame nodded next to him. “Brave. I’m sure it doesn’t matter to him.”

Asher nodded his thanks. 

“He wants to be like me when he grows up.” he said. “But I’m not sure I want him dealing with dogs like Toraji, whether it’s their fault they’re that way or not. He doesn’t know what they’re really like.”

“I think someone else does though.” Smith suddenly said and when they all turned to him in confusion, they saw him looking at Great.

The Great Dane stiffened a little, looking cross with him.

“What are you saying, Smith?” he asked and the Spaniel didn’t miss a beat.

“I’m saying I saw that look on your face when Asher mentioned Toraji’s name back at the cave.” he said. “You know him don’t you?”

Great remained silent, feeling very angry with his friend, but sensing the eyes of everyone there fixed on him. Finally, he sighed deeply and looked at the ground.

“Yes.” he said simply. “I knew him. A long time ago.”

Gin looked both concerned and wary.

“Why didn’t you say something sooner, Great?” he asked and the golden furred dog looked away ashamedly. 

“Because I think it might be my fault that he ended up in Keji in the first place.” he said. 

For a moment, everyone was silent. Then Chutora exchanged a look with his brother, an expression of shock on their faces.

“What do you mean it’s your fault?” he asked. “How do you even know this guy?”

“I’d like to know that too.” Asher said, stepping forward with a half-suspicious frown. 

Great clenched his jaws and sighed again. Then he looked at Smith.

“You probably don’t even remember him Smith.” he said. “He joined right after you and I did.”

“Joined what?” the Spaniel asked.

“The Ohu Army.”

There was a collective gasp from everyone there and John leaned forward incredulously.

“Wait.” he said. “This bastard was one of **us**? There’s no way!”

“This was before any of you were even there.” Great said, looking at him. “At the time, it was just me, Smith, and Ben as Riki’s platoon leaders. Toraji was one of my subordinates.”

“So what happened?” Akame asked in a calm but curious voice.

Great looked away, and seemed for a moment to be trying to find the right words to answer. 

“The Boss had just started sending us out to recruit more soldiers for the fight against Akakabuto,” he said. “But in those days he would order us platoon leaders, and we would then send out a couple subordinates to go where he wanted us to go. One day, he ordered some of us to head south to recruit followers, so I sent Toraji. He was basically my right hand dog at the time.”

“Wait.” Smith cut in. “The Beauceron?”

Great nodded and the Spaniel smacked the ground lightly with a paw.

“I **do** remember him!” he said. “God, I forgot all about him!”

“So did I.” Great replied, sounding uncharacteristically shaky. 

Smith and the others froze again.

“Wait.” he said, frowning. “What?”

“Right after I sent him out,” Great said. “Dozens of new dogs joined us within a week. A few days later, you and John showed up, Gin. Then Riki said he was sending **everyone** out to get strong males to join us and you know what happened after that. With all that was going on I just…forgot him. It was like he had never even existed…”

Smith put his paw on his head, looking at him in shock.

“Great…” he said in a disappointed voice but Gin looked over at him sternly.

“Smith, enough.” he said quietly. “I’m sure he feels bad enough already.”

“No, leader.” Great said after a pause. “This is my fault. Thank you standing up for me, but…he was my responsibility. It should be my job to put a stop to him.”

Asher stepped forward, looking just as shocked by the revelation as the rest of them.

“Toraji’s not the only dangerous one.” he said. “They all are. And even if what you said was true, this is still our jurisdiction. We’re not just sitting this out.”

“No one’s suggesting you do.” Akame said, but Great stepped forward.

“I’m the one he wants.” he said with an almost irritated look. “Let me deal with him.”

“He hates me just as much as he hates you.” Asher said, not raising his voice for once. “Trust me. He even threatened to kill my son a few weeks ago when I went to see him. I respect what you’re saying, Great, but he’s not your subordinate anymore. He’s **my** responsibility. Just like that **thing** is all of yours’. I can’t let you fight him alone. I’m sorry.”

He had nodded disgustedly in Zach’s direction when he spoke, and for a moment, the Malamute opened his mouth angrily, as though he wanted to retaliate somehow. At the last second, though, as if he knew better, he closed it and looked back down at the ground silently, choosing not to respond. As Gin mouthed ‘Thank you’ over in Zach’s direction for his decision to avoid a fight with the police dog, Great sighed, scowling slightly as he realized that Asher wasn’t about to back down. 

“Very well.” he said. “But you follow my lead.”

This seemed to satisfy Asher and he nodded at the Great Dane in response. Then he turned back to the rest of them. 

“My pack needs to rest for a while before we move out and look for them.” he said. “You can do the same if you wish.”

Gin nodded, looking over at his friends as he did. 

“Mmm.” he said. “That’s a good idea. We’ll do that.”

Then, he stood and walked over to where Kurotora and Zach had lay down, John, Akame and the others joining him. Once he was there, he lay down as well, resting his head on his paws as John and Wilson talked quietly about something. On the edge of the group, Great did the same, guilt filling him from nose to tail as Smith looked concernedly at him from a few feet away. The Great Dane ignored him. Seconds later, he closed his eyes.   
  


* * *

  
On the hill overlooking the town, a group of dogs silently stood and watched the soldiers of Ohu and their new allies rest themselves for the job ahead. They too were tired, having come from a neighboring territory at a grueling pace, and some of them panted exhaustedly as they waited for their leader’s order. Everyone knew that he wasn’t about to let them rest, not when they were this close, and sure enough, he called for action immediately, an excited quaver in his deep voice as he looked piercingly down at the sleeping dogs. 

“Katsuro,” he said, cracking his neck with a smile. “I think it’s time. **Take** them.”

The other dog nodded and began to stalk forward towards the resting Ohu Army, his comrades at his side. Suddenly though, as if he’d changed his mind, Toraji turned and began walking in another direction, silently heading towards the town. Confused, one of his other subordinates called after him.  
  
“You’re not coming with us, boss?” he asked.

The black-furred dog glanced back.

“I’ll be there eventually.” he said. “Engage those Ohu bastards without me. There’s one more thing I need to do first before I get to them.”

“What, sir?”

“Let’s just say…” he said. “That there’s a promise I need to keep to an old friend…before I get to the other.”

Then, with these cryptic words spoken, Toraji walked away, leaving his subordinates staring after him. Finally, Katsuro turned away with a snort, and panned his brutal gaze to the building sitting a few hundred yards away instead. Behind him, Toraji’s other subordinates turned as well.

“Are we going to attack, sir?” asked the dog who had spoken before and Katsuro shook his head.

“No.” he said. “Forget the Ohu mutts. It’s the dogs of this place who kept us here, caged us like beasts. Let Toraji get his own damn revenge. I want mine.”

The others sniggered behind him, telling him that their feelings were the same. Katsuro felt a bloodthirsty grin spread over his muzzle.

“Come on.” he said. “Let’s see how they like it when the inmates run the asylum.”

Then the group of them ran off, no one noticing them leave as they did.  
  


* * *

  
When Great awoke, it was to the sounds of a commotion around him. As he had done only that morning, he blinked the sleep out of his eyes, but this time shot to his feet at the ready. Looking around, he saw that everyone else was already awake, and as he looked at them, he saw Gin’s head turn his way. 

“What’s going on?” he asked intensely and the Akita noticed he was awake.

“Something’s happening over at Keji.” he said. “We’re heading out now.” 

Then, Asher was at his side, his whole group behind him.

“We’re ready.” he said. “Let’s move!”

“Lead the way!” John barked and the other Shepherd nodded and ran towards their destination, everyone following in his wake. 

As they approached the lab called Keji, Great could hear the sounds of a fight before he saw it. When he did, he and the others all skidded to a halt, their eyes sweeping over the scene. Dogs of all kinds were fighting in the building’s grassy courtyard, and a number of bodies already lay dead there, some bloodied beyond recognition. On the side of the building itself, a large door had been knocked clean off it’s hinges and more dogs were pouring out from within it, still more exploding through windows to its left and right. Before either Gin or Asher could give any kind of command, John spoke up.

“Look!” he growled.

When Great followed his gaze, he saw a group of 9 dogs or so running away from the lab, howling and snarling…and headed right at the town. 

“That’s Katsuro!” Asher shouted above the din around them, gesturing at the group with his muzzle. “He’s Toraji’s right hand dog!”

“There are innocent dogs and humans down in that town!” Akame added, looking at Gin for support. “We need to ensure their safety leader!”

The Akita nodded immediately.

“We have to stop those dogs now! Let’s go!”

“Gin wait!” Smith barked. “What about this right here? We can’t just leave it like this!”

He had gestured to Keji and the chaos around it when he spoke, and for a moment the Akita looked conflicted, realizing that he was right. Then, Zach stepped forward.

“I’ll deal with this.” he said intensely, nodding at the laboratory. “You handle them.”

Gin pulled back in obvious surprise, as did the others. This was clearly the last thing they had expected. 

“Zach…” Gin said. “Are you sure?”

The Malamute licked his lips.

“Hey,” he said. “This Toraji guy is your problem, not mine. And these guys need my help more than you do. I’ll put these bastards back in their cages.”

“By yourself?” John asked with a skeptical, but almost concerned look. “Against **all** of them? You’ll get killed, kid!”

Zach grinned at him toothily.

“Oh ye of little faith.” he said and the Shepherd gave an amused snort.

“Fine then,” he responded, shooting him a return half-grin. “Impress us.”

Zach nodded and Asher turned to his troops.

“All of you!” he yelled. “Stay here with him and contain this! And make sure **he** doesn’t make a run for it!”

The Malamute scowled at him, but then Gin spoke up again.

“We’ll be back to help when we’re finished!” he said. “We’ll meet you here!”

“Not if I meet you first.” Zach replied and Gin gave him an almost proud nod of approval. 

Then he looked at the others.

“Let’s go!” he yelled and then took off after the fleeing dogs, the others following closely behind him.

Watching after them, Zach waited until they were out of sight before turning back to the brawl in front of him, which was slowly breaking up into two opposing groups as more guard dogs arrived to help put a stop to the fighting. The test dogs, however, had control of the building itself, and as Zach and Asher’s subordinates stepped forward to the front, glaring at the snarling, swearing group opposite them, they realized that they needed to stop them from escaping beyond the compound’s grounds if everyone below was to remain safe. Then one of Asher’s subordinates turned to a guard dog standing next to them. 

“Where are the humans?” he asked and the other, a Doberman, glanced at him.

“The ones inside are dead.” he said. “But a couple ran down to the village to get help. For now though, it’s just us.”

“Perfect.” Zach said without looking at them. “That makes things much, much easier.”

Suddenly, a large Irish Wolfhound stepped to the front of the other group, leering at them.

“Get out of our way you human loving fucks.” he said. “We’ve got some payback to deliver.”

“It’s time,” Zach responded as the dogs around him dropped into battle stances. “For you to go back to your little cages. Scum like you who hurt innocent dogs don’t deserve the gift of life. The world’ll get along just fine without you in it.”

“You don’t want to mess with me, boy!” the Wolfhound hissed angrily. “Do you know who I am? They call me the “Devil of Nagano”! You’re 1000 years too young to fight me!”

Zach smirked.

“Really?” he drawled in a thoroughly mocking voice. “Well isn’t that a coincidence. They call me “The Mastermind”.”

The Wolfhound snarled in fury.

“Kill them!” he screamed. “Kill them all!”

Then his group charged, teeth bared and ready. On the other side, Zach and his group did the same. The fight was on.  
  


* * *

  
Gin pumped his powerful legs hard as he closed in on the escaping group. They were nearly upon the town, and though mostly everyone had fled indoors, the Akita could see a few pet dogs still chained in the back yards of some houses on the outskirts, howling in fear as they saw the brutal escapees charging their way. He couldn’t let them die! Suddenly, one of the dogs, who was faster than the rest, made it to the closest yard and leapt over the fence, snarling loudly as he bared down on a young female Shiba Inu, who screamed in terror and tugged uselessly at her leash. 

Putting on a burst of speed, Gin made a flying leap of his own, jumping clear over the other dogs of the group, who stopped in surprise, and grabbed the attacker right before his fangs closed down on the female’s face. As the dog let out a startled growl, Gin threw him hard back over the fence and right to the waiting John, who grabbed him by the throat and ripped it clean out, spraying everyone nearby with blood. Then Gin turned and bit through the female’s leash.

“Ma’am,” he said urgently. “Please get inside with your owners! We’ll handle them!”

“Thank you!” she gasped, and the Akita leapt back into action. 

The first thing he saw was that Katsuro and his pack had abandoned their attack and turned to fight, engaging his friends and Asher on the grassy field they had just sprinted across. Kurotora was locked in combat with a large Rottweiler, and the two dogs slashed at each other furiously, blood flying through the air as they each landed hits on the other. Akame, meanwhile, was dancing around a Kai dog, dodging bite after bite before leaping in and slashing open his neck and face, finally subduing him permanently by breaking his back on a large rock, slamming him down on it with a sickening ‘CRACK’. Nearby him, Chutora had already dispatched his opponent and Asher was rolling around with what looked like a Doberman, their jaws a blur as they bloodied each other up. Right as Gin saw John bite the front leg clean off a Mastiff, who collapsed with a scream of agony, he was hit hard from the side, and only just managed to leap away from a second attack as he landed miraculously on his feet. He saw that his attacker was a Tosa and immediately knew that it was Katsuro. The test dog was livid.

“I let you alone before!” he snapped furiously. “But now you’ve interfered in our fight, and for that I’ll slaughter you all!”

“Take your best shot, coward.” Gin spat back, and soon they too joined the others in combat.

Over at the edge of the group, Great saw Gin engage Katsuro, and knew that the Tosa had no idea how little of a chance he stood against the younger dog. Turning back to his own fight, though, he dodged a bite from his Greyhound attacker and retaliated by slashing him so hard across the face with his sharp fangs that his opponent pulled back with a scream, blinded completely in one eye. As the smaller dog stumbled backwards, Great knocked him onto his back and stomped down on his neck, immobilizing him. Then he leaned in.

“Where’s Toraji?!” he growled angrily and the Greyhound whimpered.

“Don’t kill me!” he pleaded in a frightened voice.

Great snorted.

“Answer my question and I’ll let you go.” he said. “I won’t even follow you. You’re not the one I want anyway. Now **where** is Toraji?”

The Greyhound nodded at the town.

“H-He went in there!” he answered. “He wouldn’t say why. It sounded like he was after somebody though.”

Great looked at the buildings and narrowed his gaze. What was the Beauceron doing? He had to end this. Looking down, he stepped off the Greyhound, watching him roll to a sitting position seconds later. Glancing back at him, he looked him in the eye intensely.

“This is the only second chance you’re getting.” he said. “Don’t blow it.”

Then he turned and ran into the town, unseen by everyone else except his former opponent, who turned as well and was gone.   
  


* * *

  
Jerome pressed himself harder into the grass of the police station’s courtyard. He had heard the fight start up at the laboratory and he instantly wanted to run to find his father. After all, he was scared, and after his mother’s death, his father was the only person he had left to comfort him. The image of him getting hurt by one of the bad dogs entered his young mind again and he whimpered, trying to will Asher to come home safely. Suddenly, he heard a ‘CLANG’ and looked over at the courtyard’s outer fence, which the humans used to keep him and the other dogs inside the station’s boundaries. There was nothing there. Mentally willing himself to be braver, Jerome stood from his laying position to get a better look. Then something landed right in front of him with a dull ‘THUD’, and the young German Shepherd stumbled backwards in surprise. Once he regained his balance, he looked up. Standing over him, glaring down with a horrible grin on his face, was a large black-furred dog, who was easily as big as his father. Jerome squared himself off to the intruder, looking very insignificant next to him. 

“Who are you?” he said, trying to sound fierce. 

Toraji’s grin widened as he heard it, and he licked his lips at the young pup.

“Your worst nightmare, kid.” he said. “Yours…and your fathers.”

Then he lunged forward, and Jerome tensed up in terror, not even having the time to howl for help.  
  


* * *

  
John let out a grunt as the dog he hit fell, his body twitching as blood poured morbidly out of the gaping wound where his face used to be. Then he was still and the German Shepherd looked over at his comrade on the ground, now being helped up by the Kai Brothers. 

“You all right, Smith?” he asked and the Spaniel nodded.

“Yeah,” he said. “Thanks for the assist.”

“Heh. Don’t mention it.”

Then he looked over at Gin, who stood over the motionless Katsuro. The Akita was barely even panting to catch his breath, and John silently marveled at his friend’s endurance. Then he saw Akame walk up to Gin and he moved forward as well.

“Leader,” the Kishu said. “Are you okay?”

Gin nodded slowly.

“I didn’t even hesitate that time.” he said. “I thought I would. Especially after Heizo.”

John smiled at him supportively, looking down at the dead Katsuro as well.

“Well done, Gin.” he said. “You made the right decision. Now he can’t hurt anybody else.”

Gin smiled back at him appreciatively, but then Smith stepped forward.

“Gin,” he said. “I thought I saw Great run into the town during the fight. He must have seen something we didn’t. We should go after him.”

“I agree.” Asher said, sporting a fresh swollen eye, “Maybe he saw Toraji.”

“Why would he have gone in there, though?” Chutora asked with a frown. “If Great was over here with us and he’s the one he wants, why go in there?”

“He has a point.” Wilson said, and for a moment, no one answered. 

Then Asher’s face went slack in horror and his head whipped over towards the town.

“No…” he breathed. “Oh shit, no…”

“What is it?” John asked intensely and the other Shepherd turned to him, looking terrified.

“He hates me just as much as he hates Great.” he said. “I said it before, remember?”

When the Ohu dogs looked confused, he added:

“My son’s down there!”

Gin felt panic seize him as he realized that the police dog was right, and before he could respond, Asher had already taken off running down the street as fast as he could move, Smith and Wilson in hot pursuit. 

“Let’s go!” the Akita shouted and they all turned to follow their friends as well.

Then Gin heard Akame call his name and he paused.

“What is it, Akame?” he asked, a touch of impatience in his voice.

“I’m going back to Keji to check on Zach.” the Kishu said and John turned and looked at him as well.

“Good idea.” he said. “That pride of his could get him killed without one of us there.”

“It’s not just his safety I’m worried about.” Akame responded, fighting back the urge to remind his friend how much his own words also applied to him.

“What do you mean?” Gin asked with a frown and the Kishu turned to him.

“I don’t trust him, Gin.” he said bluntly and the Akita looked surprised. “When he’s with us, I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but in fight? Against dogs like these? There’s no telling what he might do.”

Seeing that he had a point, Gin nodded quickly.

“All right.” he said. “We’ll go after Great and meet up with you later! Be careful, Akame!”

The Kishu nodded with a fleeting smile and them leapt away, seeing his friends do the same out of the corner of his eye as they took off the other way after Asher, Smith, and Wilson. Once he got going, it didn’t take Akame long to get back to within visual distance of the besieged laboratory and he put on a burst of speed as he saw dogs both standing and lying motionless around the outside of it. As he reached it and skidded to a halt, he saw guard dogs and Asher’s remaining subordinates helping each other away from the building, supporting those who were injured and licking their wounds as soon as they got clear. In the courtyard, there were no more fights going on, and it seemed that the escaped test dogs had fled. Zach was nowhere in sight. Akame turned to one the dogs nearest him.

“The Malamute who came with our group,” he said urgently and the dog turned to him. “Where is he?”

“He went inside.” he answered, wincing at a fresh slash in his side. “The rest of the escapees retreated back in there. He went after them.”

The Kishu nodded at him and turned to run at the building as well, but suddenly, he saw a figure emerge from its gaping front entrance, walking almost casually away from it. Akame stopped. It was Zach, he saw, and as the Malamute looked up and noticed him, the ninja-dog saw a small, satisfied smirk on his face that made his danger instincts go wild. Seconds later, before Akame had any time at all to react, Keji exploded, erupting in a massive fireball that knocked him painfully onto his back with a dull ‘THUD’. Though his ears were ringing slightly, Akame was back on his feet in seconds, and his face quickly became a mask of shock. For a second, he gaped at what was left of the building, a twisted, ravaged wreck burning vividly against the afternoon sky. Then he turned and looked at Zach, who had just pushed himself back to his paws as well, still wearing the same expression as before. Akame leapt up to him, feeling angrier than he had in a long time.

“What the hell did you **do**?!” he hissed and Zach frowned slightly at him.

“I ended the fight.” he responded, panting. “We lost a bunch of good dogs out here to those bastards, and they weren’t giving up. So I spared them the decision. By the way, did you know that those liquids the humans inject you with in these places explode when you burn them?”

“They wouldn’t surrender so you killed them **all**?!” Akame barked furiously at him, ignoring his sarcasm.

Zach turned his full attention to his comrade, suddenly looking almost cross.

“We needed to ensure the innocent dogs’ safety!” he said. “Your words!”

“Not like **this**!” Akame responded. “If you have to kill an enemy, you do it honorably! In fair combat! And even then, it’s only when you **have** to!”

For a moment, Zach just stared at him. Then he looked back at the burning laboratory and smirked again, turning at the last second back to Akame.

“Whoops.” he said tauntingly.

That’s what made Akame finally lose his temper. The ninja-dog prided himself on being able to keep his emotions in check and always remain professional, but there were times when he found he just couldn’t, and though they were rare, this was one of those times. Startling one of the retreating guard dogs nearby, he lunged and tackled the surprised Malamute, who ended up on his back for the second time that day with the Kishu standing atop him, snarling down into his face angrily.

“You listen to me you sadistic little brat.” Akame growled softly, clearly startling the younger dog with his sudden ferocity. “This is the last straw. I thought you were getting better, that the good male I **know** is in you somewhere was finally coming out, but obviously I was wrong. And this is the last time that’s going to happen. You hear me? This is the **last** time. From now on, you’re going to train with me. I am personally going to teach you how to be a great male, or I am going to beat the **life** out of you trying. From now on, you do not hurt a single strand of fur on anyone’s head without my expressed permission, bad or otherwise. And yes, I **will** be watching you. Now let’s go!”

Zach looked completely taken aback by the change in his comrade and as Akame yanked him roughly to his paws and half dragged him back towards where Gin and the others had gone, he didn’t even speak a word, not knowing what to say.  
  


* * *

  
Great whipped his head back and forth as he ran through the deserted streets of Asher’s town. All the humans had gone indoors, and the dogs that were outside were just pets chained in yards, most of them cowering behind whatever was nearby out of fear of being seen by any escaping test dogs. As a result, when he found Toraji, wherever he was, it would be nigh on impossible for the Beauceron to hide from him. Great didn’t expect him to do that, but still…he was glad for it anyway. As he reached an intersection in the road, his nose suddenly caught his enemy’s scent, and he quickly lowered his head to track his movements. But, and he paused, there was another scent there as well, and for a moment, he didn’t recognize it at all. Once he did though, Great’s eyes went wide and he took a step back to better survey the area. The violent test dog had gone after Asher’s young son, Jerome. He remembered the police dog’s insistence that Toraji hated him just as much as Great, and the Great Dane hadn’t believed it for a second until now. 

‘I have to stop him!’ he thought. ‘That kid has nothing to do with this. He can’t even defend himself!’

Following the scent trail down a side street, he soon found himself leaving the town altogether and heading up into the mountainous area behind it. Great clenched his jaws. This could not continue. It was time for this madness to end.   
  


* * *

  
Jerome squirmed and whimpered as he dangled from the stranger’s jaws. His attacker’s teeth dug painfully into his back and stomach and he found quickly that he was completely immobile, and therefore couldn’t escape. Eyes tearing up slightly, he tried to look at his black furred kidnapper.

“L-Let me go!” he demanded. “I don’t want to go with you! Let me – ”

“Shut up.” came the sharp, cold-voiced reply, and Jerome’s fear intensified. 

They had walked a long way up into the hills behind the town, and none of Jerome’s cries for help had been noticed along the way. Now, they had just approached Lake Kurobe and his mind raced as he tried to think of a way to call his father. There was no way he could fight off the older, larger male, and it was looking more and more like he wasn’t going to be released. Letting out a little growl, he squirmed again.

“Why are you doing this?!” he asked desperately, and to his surprise, the dog responded.

“To show your father what it feels like to fall as far as I did.” he said bitterly, stepping onto a road that seemed to cross the massive lake. “Unfortunately for you though, kid, your version of that lesson is a little more literal.”

Suddenly, he stopped walking and Jerome noticed two things: his kidnapper had reared up onto his hind legs…and the ground had suddenly disappeared beneath him. The little German Shepherd let out a howl of terror as he looked down. They were on top of Kurobe Dam, specifically the walking road that ran along its top, and his attacker was poised to drop him off the edge. Jerome nearly peed himself. The dam was over 600 feet high, and if he fell, if anyone fell off it, the chances of survival were nonexistent. He tried desperately to grab onto any part of the dog he could reach. 

“N-No!” he begged, tears streaming down his young face. “Please! Let me go home! Please!”

“The world’s a cruel place, kid.” Toraji said, sounding even more bitter than before. “I know that better than anyone. Now so will you…for a couple seconds anyway. Don’t take it personally, though. It’s not your fault. You just got born to the wrong father.”

“D-Don’t do this! I don’t want to die!”

Toraji half-smirked.

“It’ll only hurt for a second.” he said. “I give you my word.”

“B-But – ”

“Hey.” Toraji said, and Jerome finally managed to twist and look at him.

The Beauceron grinned evilly.

“Cross my heart.”

It was in that moment that Jerome knew, despite his youth, that he was going to die. Closing his eyes, he waited for the dog’s jaws to release him, and when they did, he felt himself falling fast, and he had nothing to grab onto to stop himself. Suddenly, though, he hit the ground. Opening his eyes in confused surprise, Jerome saw that he was back on the paved walking road, and he silently tried to stop his trembling as his mind caught up to his body. Then he heard a snarling and, looking over, saw two dogs fighting viciously a few feet to his left. Finally, one, a golden-furred Great Dane, threw the other one off and looked back at him. 

“Kid,” he said urgently and gestured with his muzzle. “Run! Head back to the town!”

Jerome was very confused and only stood up, still trembling a little from his brush with death. The golden dog looked desperate. 

“Kid, run!!” he yelled louder, but suddenly, the black furred dog head-butted him hard in the cheek, sending him skidding perilously close to the edge. 

“Fine.” he growled, bleeding from slashes in his neck and muzzle. “I’ll deal with **you** first, _sir_. Then I’ll handle that little brat.”

As he lunged, Great’s paws found the ground again and he lunged sideways, grabbing Toraji as he did and throwing him backward towards the other edge of the walking road. At the last second though, the Beauceron clawed at its concrete lip and managed to catch it, pulling himself back to the flat ground quickly before his opponent could finish him. The two snarled loudly at each other and Great got in between Toraji and the pup protectively, seeing that he was too confused and too scared to move. He looked his former comrade in the eye. 

“Toraji,” he growled, glaring at him hard. “This needs to stop. You can’t hurt this kid for what his father helped do.”

“Sure I can.” the Beauceron responded, lowering his head. “The bastard let them hurt me. He put me there to begin with! Now he’ll know how it feels when it’s his own flesh and blood being killed.”

“I’ll never let you near him.”

“You know, Great,” Toraji said, narrowing his gaze hatefully. “ **You** hurt me too. You’re the reason any of this is happening in the first place. You just threw me away…like old, rotten meat that can’t be eaten anymore.”

Great’s gaze softened slightly, and a guilty look spread over his face.

“I made a mistake.” he said softly and Toraji’s eyes widened.

“ **That’s** your excuse?!” he screamed. “You made a mistake?! I got needles the size of my dick stabbed into my eyes every week and you MADE A MISTAKE?!”

Great’s ears reversed in shame, but he didn’t let his guard down.

“Toraji,” he said shakily. “I’m sorry. Truly I am. You can hate me all you want and I won’t blame you, but this fight is between you and me. This kid has nothing to do with it.”

Toraji let out a brutal laugh.

“I used to be such a great male.” he said. “I used to have so much mercy. Not anymore. You were right, Great. This ends now. I will **never** forgive you for what you did, and I’m going to see to it that both of you die…together!”

At this, the Beauceron lunged at him, and Great could no longer stall. Letting out a ferocious growl, he lunged as well and met his former comrade in midair. There, their bodies collided violently, and Great immediately ripped at Toraji’s neck and face with his teeth, feeling his shoulder getting slashed open as he did. Then they landed back on the ground and he immediately grabbed his opponent by the leg and threw him hard at the edge of the dam, feeling Toraji’s fangs slash his face one more time before he let go. As soon as he did though, Great froze. It took him less than a second to realize in horror that he had mistakenly thrown Toraji right above where Asher’s young pup still sat cowering, and sure enough, as he began to go over the edge, the Beauceron reached out and grabbed Jerome in his jaws…and pulled him over too. 

“Shit!” Great yelled and without wasting a second to think, ran and leapt off the edge of Kurobe Dam as well, plummeting the moment his feet left the ground. 

It was then that a series of near miracles happened, and as Great somehow managed to grab Jerome by the scruff of the neck and tear him from Toraji’s grip, his hind leg hit the railing of a lower maintenance walkway and got wedged in it, bringing his freefall to a sudden painful end. As he got caught and his momentum ceased, Great heard a ‘POP’ and a shockwave of pain shot through him as his leg got wrenched clean out of its socket, nearly making him open his muzzle in a scream of pain. Instead, he kept his grip on Jerome desperately and groaned loudly in agony around his bite, watching as Toraji plummeted to his death 600 feet below, his own scream one of bitterness and frustration, before he went silent. At the same time, he heard someone calling his name, and seconds later Gin and the others burst out onto the top of the dam, their heads whipping around as they looked for their friend. It was Wilson who finally saw him and as soon as Great heard him call out in alarm, everyone else’s heads peered over the edge and looked down at him. 

“Holy fucking shit that’s high!” Kurotora exclaimed and Great saw his head disappear as he pulled back from the edge. 

Gin, however, leaned forward further.

“Great!” the Akita yelled fearfully down at him. “Hang on!”

Great nodded lightly at his leader, and he saw them start scrambling to find a way down. 

“How the hell are we going to get down to him?” Smith asked urgently and John looked over at him, the same worried expression on his face.

“I don’t know.” he said. “Akame’s the only one agile enough to get down there!”

“He should be on his way back right now with Zach.” Chutora said. “Hopefully he can – ”

Suddenly, a loud, blaring noise shattered the quiet and the Ohu warriors’ heads whipped around once more as they tried to determine its source.

“What the hell is that?” Kurotora asked nervously and Asher, who stood next to John, looked nothing short of frantic. 

“It’s the warning siren!” he yelled. “The dam’s about to release its water!”

“Shit!” John swore fearfully and Gin ran back to the edge.

“Great, hold on!” he shouted. “We’re coming down to you!”

“Don’t!” came the reply and they all stopped in their tracks.

Smith stepped to the edge next to Gin, hearing the others do the same beside him. 

“What do you mean, ‘don’t’?” he asked loudly and the golden-furred Great Dane looked up at them, a strange look in his eyes.

“You’ll never get to me in time.” he said. “This water’s about to release! You’ll get swept away if you try and come down!”

“Great, don’t be an – ”

“I’m gonna throw this kid up to you!” he yelled. “Make sure you catch him!”

“If you try and do that, your leg will come loose and you’ll fall!” Gin responded, and Great smiled at him almost gently.

“I know.” he said.

“Great, don’t do this!” the Akita begged. “Let us help you!”

“You can.” the Great Dane said, and then paused, looking at them almost affectionately. “By remembering that Great died like real male…and by telling everyone that I never meant any of this to happen. I’m sorry, leader.”

Gin’s eyes started to water and he began to get more and more desperate as he looked for some way to save his friend. But he couldn’t find one. 

“It was my honor to fight with all of you.” Great said, and everyone else began to tear up as well. “Do me a favor will you? Tell Ben…tell him…the answer is ‘Yes’.”

“Wh-What’s that mean?” Chutora asked shakily and Great smiled again.

“He’ll know.” he answered.

Then he looked at each of them one last time. 

“Goodbye.” he said. 

And before they could stop him, Great twisted and threw Jerome back up at them with all his strength, his leg coming loose as he did. Acting quickly, Gin immediately reached out as far as he could with his jaws and grabbed him, John holding his tail to keep him from falling. Then he pulled him back over and put him gently down on the ground next to his father, who hugged his son tightly to him with his front leg, licking the top of his head as the pup pressed into him firmly. Seeing that he was finally safe, the group looked back over the edge in time to see the water come rushing out of the dam in a torrent, the siren stopping its screams soon after. But that was all they saw. At the railing where their friend had been, there was only air and sunlight. Great of Ohu was gone.  
  


* * *

  
Gin felt hollow as he stood in front of Asher and his remaining subordinates. He knew that he needed to be stoic and strong as leader, but every time he tried to do that, visions of Great entered his head, and his eyes teared up again. He wasn’t alone though. It had taken them just as long to get back down to the town from Kurobe Dam as it had getting up to it, and they had met Akame and Zach along the way. The ninja-dog had sensed instantly that something was wrong when he saw them, but that probably wasn’t hard to deduce when every one of them had tears streaming down their faces. When Gin had told him of Great and Toraji’s fates, the Kishu had winced openly and it was only thanks to the bad mood he had obviously been in that he didn’t cry as well. Why Akame had been angry Gin didn’t know, but truth be told, he didn’t care. All he knew was that his friend was gone, and it had happened on his watch. Looking up, he saw Asher speaking to him again.

“Gin I…” the police dog said almost guiltily. “Thank you doesn’t even come close to what I want to say to you, but…it’s all I have. Thank you all for everything. Now we can start rebuilding the peace around here.”

The Akita nodded.

“Of course.” he said, though it was half-hearted. “It was in the interest of peace. We were glad to be of assistance.”

Asher nodded at him, and then turned to Akame, who stood on Gin’s left.

“I’m curious, though.” he said with a frown. “What happened to make Keji explode like that? Akame, you were there. Did you see what did it?”

For a moment, the ninja-dog paused. Then he glanced over at Zach, who, after meeting his gaze briefly, looked away firmly in the other direction, not saying a word to anyone. Then Akame looked back at Asher.

“No.” he said. “I’m afraid not. It just seemed to happen.”

Asher nodded, not looking as disappointed as they expected.

“Oh. Never mind then. I’m sure it was just an accident that happened in the chaos.”

The police dog hadn’t seen Zach give Akame a look of true shock upon hearing the ninja-dog’s answer, and he shook his head as if to clear the thought from it. Then he looked back at them.

“Tell me,” he said. “Did Great have any family?”

Gin looked over at Smith, who shook his head slowly and didn’t say a word, still shell-shocked by his close friend’s death. Then the Akita looked back at Asher.

“We were his family.” he said and the Shepherd nodded again.

“Then thank you again.” he responded. “…Thank you for my son.”

At that, Jerome walked forward from between his father’s front legs, a look of awe on his face as he stared up at the Ohu Soldiers. Gin smiled, trying not to tear up again.

“You’re welcome.” he said. “I have a feeling he’ll be a great male someday.”

Then he turned to the rest of his friends. 

“Let’s move out.” he ordered quietly and the sad, weary group turned and walked away, none of them looking back. Once Asher, his dogs, and the town were out of sight, Kurotora turned to Smith, who was walking beside him with an empty look on his face.

“Smith…” the Kai Dog said almost gently, recognizing his friend’s pain. “That last thing Great said before he… That message for Ben…what did it mean?”

The others overheard this and turned to the Spaniel as well, knowing that he had known him the best and being interested despite themselves. Smith swallowed hard. 

“Before we left Ohu,” he said hoarsely, “Ben was telling Great that he was nervous about becoming a father. When Great tried to tell him that he’d do fine, I heard Ben ask him: “Would **you** have wanted me as your father”.” 

Then the Spaniel lowered his head and walked on further ahead, clearly wanting to be alone. As soon as he had, the others remembered Great’s final one word message to Ben, and their ears and tails drooped sadly as they finally realized its meaning. Then John turned to Gin, and when he spoke, he spoke in a quiet, subdued voice.

“We’re ready to head to the next territory when you are, Gin.” he said. 

Suddenly, the Akita stopped walking and everyone else stopped too, looking back at him in surprise. 

“Leader?” Akame said, stepping up to him. “Are you all right.”

Gin looked up at him. 

“No.” he said. “None of us are. And after this, heading further South is just going to be harder.”

Akame and John looked at each other in concern.

“Gin,” John said. “Whatever you decide we’ll do. We’re with you no matter what. We can keep going South if that’s your command.”

“Yeah, leader.” Kurotora said. “Just give the order.”

Gin shook his head.

“We can deliver the rest of the condolences another time,” he said. “My first priority as leader is to my own pack, and right now I think we’ve had enough.”

He turned and looked at his loyal friends.

“Let’s go home.” he said. 

Then, sticking close together, the Ohu Army turned and began heading north, their path taking them straight towards Futago Pass. At the back of the group, Zach of Ibaraki walked silently, and his gaze panned contemplatively to his companions as he wondered if the approach he had taken to protecting others all his life was actually the wrong one, and if Great of Ohu had had the right idea after all. 


	5. Story 5 - The New Beginning

Kurotora sighed, stretching his neck as he walked behind John at the middle of the group, a combined feeling of guilt and restlessness growing in him with every step he took. It had been almost 3 days since he and his friends had left Nagano behind, and though he was happy to finally be heading back to Ohu, he was also still downcast over the recent death of Great, a friend whom he’d rarely talked to, but still cared for and respected nonetheless. The Great Dane’s absence felt like a hole in the group, and every time he glanced behind him, he half expected to see the golden furred dog walking there as well, as if nothing had happened to change anything. That was a feeling that he hated, as it depressed him immensely, and that he was sure the rest of the group was experiencing as well, despite their attempts to hide it. 

They had made their way North as they began heading back towards Gajou, but a few territories still lay between them and it, and they had crossed into the first one only that morning, the massive Niigata Prefecture. Every one of them had been to Niigata before, whether to fight enemies or just to pass through, but the territory itself was so big that there were still parts that were foreign to them, and the area they were traveling through now certainly qualified. Lots of brightly colored trees decorated the landscape, and though he had no idea what exactly resided amongst them, Kurotora was reminded strongly of his home territory of Kai, which he had not been back to in some time. It was because of this that he was actually secretly glad they were passing through Niigata, a feeling that his brother clearly shared from his position next to Wilson, and he was half-looking forward to seeing what else the territory had in store for them. Its beauty wasn’t the only thing he had noticed though. Besides the overall feeling of depression permeating the group, a natural result of the death of a friend, he had sensed definite tension between a couple of his friends, specifically Akame and Zach. The two males were clearly angry at each other for some reason, and though he didn’t have a clue what it was, the fact that it was Akame who was involved to begin with, and not John or someone else, perked his interest. 

‘Zach just has this way of getting under people’s skin, I guess,” he thought. ‘Even someone as professional as Akame. He’s even better at it than me… I must be losing my touch.’

Either way, he knew better than to get involved, and decided to let the two males settle whatever it was amongst themselves. He had other friends to focus on anyway. Up ahead of him, Smith was walking beside Gin at the front of the group, and was using his impressive tracking skills to try and find them the quickest route back to Ohu from where they were. It wasn’t long, though, before the Akita turned to his friend concernedly. 

“Are we still on track, Smith?” he asked and the Spaniel nodded.

“Yeah,” he responded in his reedy voice. “And the sooner we get there the better.”

“No argument from this corner.” John snorted and Gin looked around at the scenery as Kurotora himself had done. 

“At least this territory is nice.” he said, and John didn’t respond. “We could’ve gotten another Kanagawa.”

“And wouldn’t **that** have been a blast.” Zach said sarcastically and the Akita chuckled.

“My thoughts exactly.” he agreed with a smile and Kurotora turned back to the trail, relieved to see his friend manage some happiness despite the specter of death still looming over them all. 

“What packs are even in this area?” Chutora asked and Wilson shook his head from beside him.

“Take your pick,” he responded. “Niigata’s home to at least 3 or 4. I don’t know any of them personally though.”

Kurotora shook his head at the Collie.

“How do you **know** things like that?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “How many places did you **go** when you were a circus dog?”

Wilson smirked and kept looking to his front.

“A said few.” he replied, then teased. “I just have a better memory than you.”

“I think you have a better memory than God.” the Kai dog quipped, but as Wilson and Chutora laughed, the group suddenly came to an abrupt halt, and he nearly walked right into John’s rear end. 

“What the – ” he said, wrinkling his nose in irritation, “What’s going on?”

“Shh!” Akame silenced him and he saw the ninja-dog and Gin already dropped into cautious battle stances up at the front of the group. 

For a moment, none of them said anything, and he glanced over in confusion at Chutora, who looked equally as confused.

“What is it?” the elder Kai whispered and John glanced back at him sternly.

“We’re being watched.” he said, looking around suspiciously.

That shut both the brothers up instantly and they listened attentively as well, but still no one heard a thing. Gin stood back up to his full height.

“We know you’re there!” he called. “We’re just passing through, that’s all! We’re trying to get to Ohu, not invade your territory!”

“Just passing through, huh?” came a voice suddenly. “Do you take me for a fool?”

Kurotora pulled back in surprise, not because of the voice’s sudden entrance, but because it didn’t belong to another male at all. Whoever the stranger was, they were definitely female. 

Gin looked around more, trying to look non-threatening.

“I give you my word.” he said. “As leader of Ohu.”

Suddenly, something shot out from behind a tree in front of them, and seconds later other forms followed suit from all of the other trees around it. There were more than 30 of them in all, and before he or the others could say another word, they were completely surrounded. Then one of the newcomers stepped forward. 

“ **You’re** Gin of Ohu?” she asked skeptically and he nodded.

“Yes,” he said. “But who are you, miss?”

“My name is Amaya,” the dog responded. “I’m the boss of this part of Niigata. And I prefer the title ‘leader’, thank you.”

Kurotora felt his jaw slacken in shock. Amaya, he could see, was a purebred Kai-Ken like himself, and her striped, reddish-brown fur seemed to practically gleam in the sunlight shining through the trees as they stood there facing each other. On top of the clear confidence that seemed to resonate in her voice as she spoke, she was also quite beautiful, and Kurotora found his interest peaked in a major way. He was so taken aback by her in fact, that he almost didn’t notice that she wasn’t the only female there. When he finally broke his captivated gaze away from her though and got a better look at her pack, he pulled back in even greater surprise. Every single one of the dogs that now encircled them were female, all of varying breeds and ages, and they all seemed to be keeping a close eye on him and the others as they slowly cut off every possible route of escape. Kurotora could see his friends looking around at the strange group as well, and even Gin looked more than a little surprised that there wasn’t a single male amongst them. Amaya must have noticed this, because seconds later she glared at them in irritation.

“Is something wrong?” she asked challengingly and Gin shook his head.

“No,” he said quickly. “I – er – just didn’t know there was a pack in this area.”

“Well, there is,” the female Kai responded. “And I’d like to know who you **really** are and why you’re here.”

“I told you,” Gin said carefully. “My name is Gin. My friends and I are just passing through. We’re trying to get back to Ohu.” 

Then he cocked his head slightly in curiosity despite himself.

“Forgive me if I sound rude,” he said. “But…is all of your pack?”

“No,” Amaya said, narrowing her eyes at him. “There are more elsewhere. And yes, before you ask, we **are** all girls, so you can tell your friends to stop checking us out.”

Kurotora heard Zach snort quietly from in front of him as he looked around at their detainers.

“Happy birthday, Zach.” he muttered, and the Kai dog had to bite his tongue hard to keep from laughing as Akame reached over with a paw and smacked him upside the head in response. 

Amaya, however, wasn’t as amused. 

“Was I talking to you?” she snapped, glaring furiously at him. “No? Then shut your mouth!”

Zach straightened up a little, clearly taken aback by her aggressiveness and John grinned widely with a snicker.

“Well said, miss.” he said. “I think that got the message across!”

She turned to him with the same expression.

“I wasn’t talking to **you** either ‘Rin-Tin-Tin’!” she spat. “This is between leaders!”

It was Zach’s turn to laugh and John looked livid as he opened his mouth to say something back to her. Gin, however, beat him to it.

“I appreciate that we’re strangers,” he said crossly, “But there’s no need to be disrespectful. For the last time, we only wish safe passage.”

“I don’t believe you!” the female Kai shot back. “I think you’re working for Katsu, and I’m going to give you pigs everything you deserve!”

“Miss,” Kurotora suddenly said, stepping forward before Gin could answer. “Trust me, he’s telling the truth. I give you my word.”

Amaya’s gaze whipped over to him and for a moment, she glared at him intently. Then a look of genuine shock passed over her face. 

“You – ” she said, then paused. “You’re one of those three demon brothers from Kai!”

Kurotora was caught off guard, but nodded anyway.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m Kurotora.”

Then he gestured to his friends.

“This is our leader Gin, John, Akame, Smith, Zach, Wilson, and my brother Chutora.”

Amaya seemed to think for a moment, studying them closely, but then nodded and calmed down a little. Then she turned to her packmates.

“Stand down!” she called. “They’re okay.”

The other dogs did what she said immediately, and she turned back to Kurotora.

“My sister and I heard about you and your brothers when we were growing up near here.” she said. “You’re famous among our kind. Actually, I’ve heard of most of you. I’m sorry about that, but I had to be sure.”

“I understand,” Gin said, stepping forward again. “But who’s this ‘Katsu’ you thought we worked for?”

A scowl passed over the female Kai’s face.

“A dead dog if I ever get my claws on him.” she responded and when Gin looked confused added. “He’s a local troublemaker whose pack moved into this area recently. He’s kind of a wannabe mercenary but he’s basically just a thug. We’ve been fighting him for a few months now.”

“Why?”

“He and his pack want us to be their mates.” she responded hatefully. “When we refused he started kidnapping us by force. My sister was taken two days ago…”

Kurotora growled angrily at the same time John, Smith, and Chutora all did. 

“How cowardly!” the Spaniel hissed and she nodded in agreement.

“We all banded together in the first place because we were abused.” she told them bitterly. “By humans or males of our own kind, it didn’t matter. Either way, we weren’t gonna take any more, so we decided to make a better life together as a pack. This is our territory now.” 

Then a dark look passed over her face.

“Not that that matters to Katsu, of course.” she said. “He thinks we’re his property. Unfortunately he has more dogs than us, and he’s gotten more and more violent every time we fight back, but that’s not going to make us lie down and submit. We won’t be pushed around just because he’s stupid enough to think that a female wouldn’t fight back.”

As soon as she finished saying this, she looked at Gin.

“But if you’re really who you say you are,” she said, “Then your help could be invaluable. I know I was rude to you before, but I ask you, one leader to another…will you help us?”

Gin looked at Akame and John and then nodded immediately once they had.

“Of course we will.” he said. “Dogs like him need to be put in their place.”

Amaya nodded a ‘thank you’ and Kurotora saw her smile for the first time since she’d revealed herself. It was undoubtedly in relief, he knew, but it still somehow made her look even more gorgeous than before, and he licked his lips excitedly. The female Kai then turned and gestured to them with her head.

“Come,” she said. “We’ll take you back to our base. We can discuss everything from there.”

With that, she walked away into the trees, and Kurotora followed her alongside Gin at the front of their group, hearing the others tailing close behind as they waited to see where they were going.  
  


* * *

  
It didn’t take long for them to reach Amaya and her clan’s home, a series of small dens set into a hillside, and once they had gotten there, the female pack leader had quickly brought them up to speed on the problems her clan was facing. Katsu, it turned out, was a St. Bernard that had originally come from the nearby city of Yamagata, but had been kicked out into the wilderness as a stray after apparently attacking other dogs and causing too many problems around its outskirts. Unfortunately, he had amassed a pretty sizable pack since then, and was capable of being a significant threat to all of their safety. What they **did** have to be thankful for, though, was that most of his pack was untrained in battle, and weren’t used to fighting dogs that were better than them. If they played their cards right, Kurotora knew, the enemy pack would have a very hard time with the seasoned, more experienced soldiers of Ohu. 

By the time they had found out everything they needed to know, night had begun to fall, and Gin had decreed that they would post guards around the base and rest until morning, a suggestion that Kurotora himself had no qualms with, as he hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep since Great had died. As he, Wilson, Smith, and Chutora found a comfortable spot and laid down though, he found himself instead watching the movements of their hosts, and let his eyes linger repeatedly on a few of them. Truth be told, after all the death he had witnessed since he’d left Kai, and the birth of Ben and Cross’s young pups a number of months ago, Kurotora had been thinking more and more about possibly starting a family of his own. He had no idea how to be a father to anyone, but still, the Kai family line needed to continue on somehow, and given Akatora’s tragic death at Akakabuto’s claws, maybe it now fell to him to see that it was. 

‘But who would want to be **my** mate?’ he thought. ‘I’m not exactly the most agreeable dog, am I? Besides, is that what I really want?’

As the Kai dog’s mind continued to wander, Gin, John, and Akame were settling down themselves off to his left, and laughed quietly at their friend’s daydreaming.

“You think he’s noticed that she’s not the only female here?” John joked to Gin, seeing Kurotora staring absentmindedly at Amaya.

The Akita chuckled.

“With Kuro,” he said. “You never know. What do you think Akame?”

The Kishu didn’t answer and Gin repeated his name a little louder, making the ninja-dog jump a little and look up at him apologetically. 

“Lost in thought, Akame?” John said. “What’s on your mind?”

“A number of things.” came the answer and the Shepherd raised an eyebrow.

“Like what?” he asked again, slightly more insistently, but Akame turned his attention to Gin instead. 

“Gin,” he said, “Could you do without Zach and I for a couple days?”

The Akita frowned.

“I suppose.” he said slowly. “But why?”

“I’m taking him out into the woods to train him as a soldier,” the ninja-dog said. “And while I am, I need you all not to disturb us, or help him in any way.”

John cocked his head slightly and looked at his friend.

“You’ve been pissed at him ever since we left Nagano, Akame.” he said observantly. “What’s going on between you two?”

“I’d like to know that too.” Gin said with a slightly concerned frown, looking the Kishu in the eye.

Akame didn’t miss a beat.

“What’s going on,” he responded seriously. “Is he butchered close to a hundred dogs in Nagano.”

“WHAT?!” Gin barked in shock and John echoed his expression. “When?!”

“Remember when I told Asher that I didn’t know why Keji exploded?” the ninja-dog said solemnly. “Well…I lied.”

Gin sighed deeply, grimacing in simultaneous anger and disappointment.

“God damn it, Zach…” he muttered and turned away from his two friends, looking as though he was thinking about what to do.

“Are you gonna punish him, Akame?” John asked in a serious voice and the Kishu looked at him.

“The training itself is harsh.” he said. “It’ll be punishment enough, trust me.”

“Good.” the Shepherd responded, and Akame turned to Gin, who had just spun back around to face them. 

“Is that all right, leader?” he asked and the Akita nodded.

“Yes.” he said. “Do what you will Akame. I trust you.”

“Thank you.” Akame answered gratefully.

Gin shook his head again, looking contemplative.

“I thought he was getting better.” he said, then sighed again. “Maybe he really **is** beyond redemption.”

“I don’t believe that.” Akame said and both of his friends looked at him in surprise.

“Akame?” Gin asked and the ninja-dog looked at him sagely.

“He’s **not** a bad dog, Gin.” he said quietly. “Deep down, his motives are as pure as ours. The problem is the way he acts on them. **That’s** what’s wrong, what’s twisted, because no one’s ever been there to stand up to him and **tell** him he’s wrong. No one ever taught him the right way…so I will. It’s a lesson he needs to learn, even if it’s a harsh one.”

“He’s been with us almost a month now, Akame.” John said. “You’ve seen how combative he is. He’s as bad as me. You really think he’s gonna listen?”

The Kishu looked at his friend with a suddenly determined look. 

“Oh, I’ll **make** him listen.” he said. “One way or another. I am **not** giving up on him just because he’s a stubborn bastard. I’ll make him the good male he should be.”

Gin nodded at him with a confident smile.

“Good luck then.” he said. “I look forward to seeing the results.”

“As do I,” John agreed. “Don’t neuter him too much though. I need **somebody** to fight with on these trips of ours.”

Akame and Gin both smiled in amusement, and then the ninja-dog stood, looking again at his two friends.

“If you need us,” he said. “Send up a howl, leader.”

Then he turned and walked away, his tail swishing behind him as he vanished from their view. Gin and John watched him go, and then laid their heads down as well, intending finally to get some well-earned rest. To their right, Kurotora of Kai was still lost in thought, and found himself strangely restless as he vainly tried to close his eyes for a while. Right as he was about to finally succeed though, he saw movement out of the corner of his eye, and glanced over to see Amaya striding calmly into the woods away from them, no guards of any kind following her as she did. The Kai Dog silently praised his luck. Standing immediately, he padded quickly after her, making sure that none of her subordinates were watching him as he slipped unnoticed into the trees in her wake.   
  


* * *

  
Chutora stretched himself as he stood. The nap he had been taking had been brief, but it had still helped relax him somehow after the stress he and the others had been under for the past few days. Blinking fatigue out of his eyes, he glanced over at where his brother was supposed to be and saw nothing but the ground he’d been laying on. Chutora smiled, knowing immediately where the other Kai Dog had gone. 

‘It’s not gonna work out the way you want, Kuro,’ he thought. ‘I hope you’re prepared for that.’

Shaking his head amusedly, he began walking towards the trees on the other side of their clearing, accidentally bumping Smith as he did. The Spaniel lifted his head sleepily.

“Where are you going?” he asked and Chutora glanced back at him apathetically. 

“To take a piss.” he said. “Don’t get up on my account, Smith.”

“Hmph.” the Spaniel snorted. “Fine. Then I won’t.”

Chutora didn’t acknowledge him and continued on into the forest, yawning as he did. He wondered what Kurotora planned to do when he found Amaya and smirked as he imagined the possible ways it could go wrong. He had been able to tell immediately that his brother liked the female pack leader and while he had to admit that she was definitely easy on the eyes, that kind of thing had never really been of great interest to him. Kai dogs were bred to fight, he thought, and they both had duties to Gin and Ohu. Neither one of them had really had time to think about mates or families. 

“Help!”

Chutora’s lone ear perked up immediately and he stiffened in surprise. 

‘What the hell was that?!’ he thought.  
  


* * *

  
Kurotora stepped carefully around another tree, seeing the lithe shape of Amaya weaving between obstacles as she continued to move quickly away from her clan’s base. He could hear water flowing somewhere nearby, and assumed that she was probably headed for a nearby river or stream to get a drink or some fish for the pack to eat. Sure enough, a small creek came into view moments later through the branches in front of him, and he saw her stop by the water’s edge. He slowed. 

‘What the hell are you doing, Kuro?’ he thought. ‘Why are you following this…this…female?’

Kurotora scowled, mentally kicking himself for being such a coward. Before he could change his mind though, he emerged from the trees as well. As soon as he had, Amaya turned around and saw him.  
  


* * *

  
Chutora ran towards where the sound had come from, whipping his head left and right as he looked for its source. Suddenly, he heard what sounded like a muffled, pained yell to his right and immediately changed direction to head towards it, his fangs clenched in concentration as he sensed for any danger around him. Then, as he emerged from between two trees, he saw what the noise had been. Fifty feet or so away, three large male dogs were dragging a lone female away from where the Niigata pack’s base was, holding her muzzle shut so she wouldn’t scream for help again, and biting her painfully on her already wounded neck as they did. She was thrashing and fighting mightily, he saw, but was badly outnumbered and was much smaller than her three attackers. Suddenly, one of the dogs slammed her head into a nearby tree with a painful sounding ‘THUD’. 

“Stop moving, bitch!” he hissed and Chutora snarled angrily. 

That immediately got their attention, but by then the Kai dog was already moving. He slashed the one who had done it across the eyes with his claws and grabbed a second one by the side of the neck with his jaws as the first one fell with a yelp of pain. Then he jerked his head backwards hard and felt the dog’s flesh tear loose in his grasp, hearing him whine loudly as a jet of blood shot into the air and he fell to the ground twitching. Seeing this, the third one immediately let go of the female and made a run for it, vanishing amongst the thick foliage as Chutora stood in front of the young victim protectively. He glanced back at her. 

“Don’t worry, miss.” he said. “You’re safe now.”

“Actually, you’re not.” came a low, angry voice. 

Chutora froze. The voice had come from right behind them and he silently cursed his carelessness. Whirling around, he tried to aim a bite at where he thought the voice’s owner was standing. Instead, something smashed him across the face hard and he slumped to the ground limply as the female let out a howl of terror and all his vision went dark.   
  


* * *

  
Kurotora watched as Amaya’s eyes widened in surprise, and she stared at him in annoyance.

“What do **you** want?” she asked bluntly and the male Kai shrugged.

“Just to talk.” he said, stretching his hind legs a little. “I’m curious how someone like you becomes a pack leader.”

“Someone like me?” she repeated. “A female, you mean?”

He looked at her.

“A strong-willed one.” he said. “One who’s able to stand up to thugs like this Katsu while still leading a big pack. That’s not something I’ve come across too much. It’s impressive to say the least.”

She snorted, smirking slightly.

“Thank you,” she said, leaning down to lap at the water. “But don’t waste your time. You’re not my type.”

Kurotora laughed with a shake of his head.

“Wow,” he said sarcastically. “You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?”

“No,” she answered with a teasing smile. “You’re just predictable. Figured you’d put the moves on the girl in charge, huh?”

The Kai-ken smirked.

“Hey,” he said. “I’m a male, what can I say? Besides, you’re not helping yourself by being – ”

He stopped abruptly, catching himself, and Amaya looked over at him with a frown.

“By being what?”

“Nothing.” he said, clearly embarrassed. “Nothing.”

“Oh,” she scoffed. “Now you’ve got my attention and you **don’t** want to talk anymore?”

“It’s nothing!” he snapped. “You’re just…you…you look good is all.”

Amaya pulled back a little in surprise and then gave him an almost flattered smile.

“Well aren’t **you** the charmer.” she teased and he flushed even more beneath his fur. 

“Leader Amaya!”

Her head whipped immediately towards the sudden hail and one of her subordinates came bounding up quickly from out of the trees.

“What is it?” she demanded, and the dog, a Spitz, came to a stop panting.

“Leader,” she said. “It’s Katsu! He did it again!”

Amaya growled deeply in anger and took off running towards her base, Kurotora and the subordinate sprinting alongside her. 

“Who did he take this time?” she asked seriously and the Spitz gave her a worried look. 

“Emiko.” she said. “It also looks like he may have taken one of Gin’s packmates as well.”

Amaya and Kurotora skidded to an abrupt halt and stared at her in horror. 

“What?!” the female Kai gasped, but Kurotora was more insistent.

“Who?” he demanded anxiously. “WHO?!”

The Spitz took a step back nervously and glanced at her leader before responding:

“The other Kai dog who was with you. The brown one with only one ear.”

Kurotora’s stomach fell to his feet. 

“Chutora…” he breathed, and without another moment’s hesitation turned and took off at a full run towards the Niigata clan’s base, hearing Amaya shouting behind him to wait. 

Seconds later, he burst through the trees and immediately saw Smith walk up to him, Gin and the others awake and alert behind him.

“Kuro – ” the Spaniel started, but the Kai dog pushed right past him.

“Where is he?” he demanded. “Do we have his trail yet?”

“Kuro,” Gin said calmly, also looking worried despite it. “We’re looking for the trail now. They won’t get far.”

“You’re fucking right they won’t get far!” Kurotora growled. “ **Nobody** attacks my family! What the hell happened anyway?!”

The others looked at each other for a moment before Wilson answered.

“It looks like Chutora stumbled across an abduction in progress.” he said gravely. “When he tried to stop them it looks like he was ganged up on and taken too.”

Kurotora snarled, his hackles rising in fury. 

“Kurotora,” John said, meeting his gaze. “Calm down. We’re on it.”

“Calm down?!” the Kai dog howled. “This bastard took my brother!”

“We’ll get him back.” Amaya said, stepping up to him and he managed to get himself under control a little. “I promise. We’ll get them all back, and Katsu will pay dearly for what he’s done.”

Kurotora nodded in vindictive agreement and looked around at his friends to check on their progress. Then he frowned in confused annoyance.

“Where’s Akame and Zach?” he demanded. “Shouldn’t they be here helping?”

Gin and John exchanged a glance. 

“They…um…” Gin said slowly. “They had something they needed to take care of first.”

“Yeah? Well they better get back here soon!”

Gin nodded, but then looked over his shoulder at the trees.

“I wouldn’t count on it.” he muttered quietly.  
  


* * *

  
Zach padded silently after Akame as the ninja-dog began walking faster, slowly getting further and further away from where they’d been. The older dog had approached him as he was settling down to rest and asked to speak with him alone, a request that Zach had agreed to, though he secretly wasn’t looking forward to it. Out of all of his friends, Akame was the one he had probably the most combative relationship with, and he often found himself nervous around him. Sure, he fought with John constantly, but with him half the time it was just lighthearted teasing. With Akame, who was the only dog he’d ever met who was more cunning than him, it was usually the real thing, and now he wondered what talk was serious enough that they had to go so far out of their way to be alone together. He glanced up at the Kishu’s furred back. 

“Akame,” he said. “We’re getting pretty far away from Gin and the others.”

“I know.”

“Why?”

“Shut up and walk. We’re almost there.”

Zach didn’t argue with him and soon enough, they emerged in a large clearing that seemed perfect for holding a large pack meeting of some kind. As soon as they entered it, Akame walked to the middle and sat down on his haunches, staring at Zach expectantly. Shrugging in irritation, the Malamute sat down as well, looking his comrade in the eyes as soon as he did. 

“All right.” he said in exasperation. “What is it?”

For a minute, Akame just stared at him quietly and Zach frowned when he got no reaction from the ninja-dog. 

“You **did** bring me out here for a rea– ” he started.

“Hit me.”

Zach blinked in surprise.

“What?”

“Hit me.” Akame repeated, standing up. “Anywhere you want. If you land a single blow, you can go back.”

Zach looked at him as though he was crazy.

“Why the hell would I want to – ”

SMACK! Zach’s head snapped to the side and he stumbled from the blow, looking up at the ninja-dog in shock moments later. Akame continued to stare calmly at him.

“I said hit me.” he repeated. “You have five seconds or I do that again.”

Zach growled. Then he glared at him.

“Fine.” he said and quickly swung a paw at the Kishu’s face. 

Suddenly, Akame was gone and he felt a sharp pain stab him in the side. Zach grunted as he fell sideways and rolled twice before coming to rest back on his paws moments later. Akame strode up calmly.

“Again.” he barked and the Malamute lunged at him, aiming for his throat. 

Akame leapt high into the air as soon as he did it and grabbed him by the back of the neck with his teeth. Then he twisted and slammed him down back first on the hard ground below, stepping away from him as soon as he had. 

“You fight better than this!” he said bluntly. “Stop wasting my time!”

Zach pushed himself to his paws, growling angrily.

“Did you really bring me out here just to beat me up?” he hissed. “Have a little one-on-one time away from Gin?”

Akame turned back to him with a serious stare.

“I brought you out here,” he responded. “To train you. To be a soldier of Ohu.”

Zach gaped at him.

“You can’t be serious!” he said and Akame walked right up to him.

“Do you know why I caught you?” he asked seriously and Zach scowled at him.

“I had a bad day?” he said through clenched teeth.

“No.” the ninja-dog answered. “I caught you because I was the first person you ever met who was better than you. Every opponent you faced before then was inferior, and that’s why you walked all over them without so much as a single consequence. But I’m **not** inferior to you, and from now on you answer to me. I’m smarter, faster, stronger, and have far more fighting experience than you, and until you learn to better yourself, you will never defeat me.” 

Zach snorted, looking thoroughly irritated.

“Your humility is inspiring.” he said and Akame suddenly tried to smack him again with his paw. 

Anticipating it this time though, the Malamute dodged the blow and quickly aimed a bite at the older dog’s face…and hit nothing but air. Akame had ducked so fast that he had barely seen him move, and before he could make sense of it, he was upended and slammed face-first into the dirt once more as Akame settled back into the sitting position he had been in before. He looked at Zach patiently.

“Finished?” he asked coldly and Zach glared murderously at him, wiping gravel off his muzzle with a paw.

“What the fuck was that one for?” he hissed and Akame looked him right in the eye.

“That was for talking back to me.” he said bluntly. “And every time you do it from here on in, I’ll hit you again, each time harder than the last. From this day until I say otherwise, you are my student, and while you are, you will address me as ‘sir’.”

“Not even if you threatened me!” Zach spat.

SMACK! The Malamute spit some blood out of his muzzle. Then he met Akame’s gaze.

“Ohhhh…” he said with a furious laugh. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you? As much as an emotionless machine like you can enjoy something anyway.”

“No,” Akame answered simply. “I’m not.” 

“Then why are you doing it?!” Zach hissed, and the ninja-dog stepped up close to him.

“Because it’s the only way you’ll listen.” he said. “And it’s the only way you’ll learn.”

Then the Kishu settled down onto his haunches.

“Now,” he said. “This training is not going to be easy. And though I **will** teach you what you need to know, I won’t help you otherwise. Whether you succeed or fail is entirely up to you. I warn you though: every 2nd time you fail at something you go a day without food.”

“You can’t do – ”

“On top of that,” Akame continued, cutting him off. “Every time you try and run, I’ll knock you down and drag you back. And don’t think for 1 second that I’m not every bit as stubborn as you.”

Then he stopped talking and looked at the younger dog, and it was immediately clear that Zach was at a total loss for words. He gaped furiously at the ninja-dog, looking completely lost, and a second later Akame’s gaze surprisingly softened. 

“I’m doing this to help you.” he said quietly. “This isn’t only about punishment for what happened in Nagano. I’m trying to save your life.”

“You said that once before.” Zach growled. “The day you took me from my home.”

“And I meant it then too.”

“I am not **you**!” the Malamute yelled loudly. “I will never **be** you! Why can’t you understand that?!”

Akame didn’t answer and waited patiently for him to continue, his senses telling him that Zach was finally opening up and revealing who he **really** was. When the younger dog kept going though, his voice was just as angry as before.

“Believe me,” he snapped. “I’ve tried! After Kanagawa, I saw the kind of dogs you really were and I tried to be like you, but I’m just not. I haven’t lived your lives and you haven’t lived mine, so how can you expect us to be the same? You all share a bond and a friendship with each other that makes you who you are, and I don’t even know what that **feels** like. No one’s ever felt that for me. You certainly don’t.”

He paused for a moment and sighed to calm himself a little. Then he looked at his white-furred comrade again and the jealousy and bitterness in his eyes were as clear as the cloudless sky around them. 

“I did what I did,” he said, “Because aside from all of you, I’ve never met another ‘soldier’ who didn’t deserve to get wiped off the face of the fucking world. That’s the way I see things, the way I’ve always seen them. Nothing else has ever worked, so what makes you think that **this** will work now?”

Then he stopped talking, and for a long time, Akame just sat and stared silently at him, his gaze a mixture of pity and disappointment. Finally he stood with a deep sigh and moved closer, sitting down beside the younger dog and looking him in the eye. 

“I have **never** ,” he said softly. “Expected you to be us. You’re right. You haven’t lived our lives, or been through the things we have, and it would selfish of me to ask you to become something you don’t understand. But despite what you said, what I **did** , and still do, expect of you, is to do what’s **right** , to do what a real male would do, without stooping to the level of those you fight. Your way is the only one that’s worked because you’ve never been taught another way, and if you keep going down this path you’re on, Zach, the only thing it will lead you to is death. That’s why I’m here to teach you now, because I don’t want to see that happen. And I know that this will work because even though what I said before still stands, I’m willing to show you what that friendship feels like, to have faith in you when you clearly have none in yourself, despite all that sarcasm and bravado you show.” 

Then the ninja-dog rested a paw on his shoulder gently.

“You’re not the monster you want the world to think you are, Zach…” he said kindly. “And I’m gonna prove it to you.”

Zach stared at him wide-eyed for a moment after this, clearly caught off guard by the ninja-dog’s response, and seemed almost to be fighting back tears as he looked at the ground and darted his gaze back and forth, as if contemplating everything he had heard. Then Akame stood and walked a few paces away, looking back at him as soon as he reached the edge of the clearing. 

“Training starts now.” he said, “Follow me…and show me who you **really** are.”

Zach nodded, and an almost undetectable smile formed at the corner of his muzzle as he looked at his comrade, a new determined glint in his eye. 

“Yes sir.” he said, and Akame returned the smile before he turned away, and they both disappeared into the trees.   
  


* * *

  
Chutora growled loudly in agony as he was bitten again, this time on the stomach, and the two dogs responsible ripped and twisted at his flesh savagely as he was restrained, a whole group of their brutal looking comrades standing around watching the show without mercy. Above him stood the dog named Katsu, an ugly, heavily scarred St. Bernard whose drooping face couldn’t hide the combined look of anger and nervousness that it wore. 

“Who are you?” he spat again. “What the hell are you doing around my females?”

“The last dog you wanted to mess with, bastard!” the Kai dog hissed, wincing. “And they aren’t **your** females. They don’t belong to anybody!”

“They are MINE!” yelled the huge dog and stomped down on Chutora’s groin with his massive paw, making the proud Kai dog cry out in intense pain before he was forcibly held down again. “And you will tell me who you are or I will spill your guts right now! Who the fuck are you?!”

Chutora clenched his teeth. After being attacked in the forest, he had woken up in some sort of cave, and had immediately been leapt upon and restrained by half a dozen dogs while they waited for their leader to question him. This had taken quite a while, as Katsu had been busy raping the young female Chutora had attempted to save, and he had been forced to listen to the whole thing whilst trying to provoke the huge dog into leaving her alone, an endeavor that had not only not worked, but had backfired when he had managed to piss Katsu off enough to strangle her with a bite to the throat. Afterwards, the St. Bernard had stormed over to him from his inner cave, and had attempted to viciously torture the information he wanted out of him, and that was where he found himself now. He had absolutely no intention of telling the thuggish dog anything, and was biding his time until one of them made a mistake that would allow him to escape, hopefully with any kidnapped members of Amaya’s pack he could find. After all, he was a proud Kai dog, and a soldier of Ohu. If he gave into bastards like these he would never be able to look Gin or the others in the face again. One way or another, he thought, he was getting out of here. He just hoped that he wasn’t too injured to do it when the time came. Right as he was debating how to respond to Katsu’s demanded question, a new voice made itself known. 

“Boss!” it said, and Katsu looked up.

“What?” he spat.

“Juro just got back from spying on them, Katsu-san.” the dog said. “There’s more of these guys with Amaya’s pack.”

He gestured at Chutora when he said it and Katsu looked furious.

“How many?” he demanded.

“At least 5 or 6.” came the answer. “And get this: he thinks one of them might be Gin of Ohu.”

Chutora growled softly in frustration upon hearing this, and Katsu turned to look at him with an angry, wide-eyed stare. 

“The Ohu Army…?” he breathed, then cracked his neck. “All right. Fine. So Gin wants to stick his nose in my business does he? Well, we’ll see how confident he feels when I send you back to him in pieces. First though, I think it’s time Amaya paid the price for being such a difficult little bitch.”

With that, he nodded at two of his subordinates and they walked out of Chutora’s field of vision, reemerging moments later dragging a thrashing, fighting female Kai dog between them. As Chutora saw her, he gave a grunt of realization, feeling his wounds still seeping blood painfully from his ‘questioning’ as he did. The dog he was looking at resembled Amaya in many ways, and in fact only her younger age and slightly longer ears differed from the other female at all. 

‘This has to be her sister!’ he thought. ‘The one she said had been taken.’

Katsu sauntered over to her and stared down with a leering glare, his brutal eyes seeming to cut into her as he did. 

“Your sister is really starting to piss me off.” he said. “And now, you’re gonna have to pay for it.”

“What’s the matter, Katsu?” she taunted, forcing her head up to look at him. “Still too afraid to fight me one on one? I guess it’s kind of hard to brag to these fools how you lost to a girl, huh?”

He smirked at her.

“I’m going to enjoy this.” he said, but she had just suddenly noticed Chutora. 

When she looked back at the St. Bernard, she looked angry.

“You’re attacking strays now, you monster?” she growled. “Dogs that have nothing to do with this? It’s no wonder no one wanted you in Yamagata.”

Katsu laughed loudly in his deep voice and shot Chutora a disparaging look.

“Strays?” he snorted. “You two clearly have things to talk about. First though...”

He suddenly shot his head down and grabbed one of her ears in his teeth. 

“This is to teach you and your sister a lesson.” he said threateningly. “About remembering your place.”

Then he jerked his head sideways in one hard motion and tore her ear clean off her head, spitting it onto the ground once he had. The female screamed in agony and Chutora thrashed furiously at his numerous captors. 

“You coward!” he howled in rage. “She can’t even fight back! You worthless piece of shit!”

Katsu whirled around and grabbed him by the throat with his huge jaws. Then he picked him up completely off the ground and shook him hard, smashing his head into the nearby rock wall on purpose and stomping down on his underside before tossing him limply over to where the female lay shaking in pain. 

“Put them in the back cave!” he ordered his gathered troops. “And put a guard on them! I’m gonna go leave this ear where Amaya can find it. Oh, and if you run into any of Gin’s pack: kill them.”

Chutora growled softly in pain as he tried to catch his breath, feeling blood streaming down his forehead as Katsu and most of his subordinates disappeared out into the forest. Then he was grabbed roughly by the hind leg and dragged into a smaller back cave, hearing the female getting the same treatment beside him. Once inside, they were unceremoniously dumped near a wall and their captors stalked back out, leaving them alone with their injuries and each other. Chutora pushed himself up a little and lifted his head to look at his female companion. 

“Are you okay, miss?” he asked quietly, wincing at his wounds, and when she looked at him, he could see tears streaming down her face. 

“W-Who are you?” she whispered, clearly in pain, and he tried to look non-threatening.

“My name is Chutora.” he said. “I’m sorry they did that to you.”

She inhaled a shaky breath and shook her head slightly.

“It’s okay…” she said softly. “I knew he would do something. I’ve managed to prevent him from raping me so far, but I knew it was just a matter of time before he hurt me somehow.”

Then she looked at him almost quizzically.

“Are you really from the Ohu Army?” she asked and he nodded.

“Yeah.” he said. “And my friends will find us soon. They’ll have noticed I’m missing by now. Until they come though, we should start looking for a way out. You’re Amaya’s sister aren’t you?”

She nodded almost shyly through her pained grimace. 

“I’m Shiori.” she said and Chutora smiled disarmingly at her. 

“It’s nice to meet you,” he said, and watched as she clutched at what had once been her ear. “Here, hold still.”

Leaning over, he pushed her paw out of the way and gently began licking the still bleeding wound, stemming the blood flow within seconds as he did. Though at first she was caught off guard, and growled softly in pain at the contact, Shiori eventually relented and leaned tiredly against him, letting him continue with what he was doing. Feeling his own wounds still throbbing painfully, Chutora looked around at their new prison. 

‘I hope you guys get here soon.’ he thought. ‘Because this could get really ugly really fast.’  
  


* * *

  
‘Curse this rain! Curse this god damn rain!’

Kurotora lowered his nose back to the ground as he searched once again for any trace of a foreign scent, his claws digging into the gravel beneath them in fury. Three days had passed since Chutora’s abduction, and with each passing moment, Kurotora got more and more agitated. He had thought that they would be able to find his brother quickly and without too much trouble, despite the seriousness of the situation. After all, they were soldiers of Ohu! One lowly thug and his pack of troublemakers shouldn’t have been a match for them. Katsu though, to his great disgust and worry, had managed to avoid detection anyway, and mere hours after they had begun their search, a torrential downpour had started and hadn’t ceased since, washing away all traces of the St. Bernard and his pack with it. Further complicating things was the fact that Niigata was rife with places to hide, and every time they found what they thought was their enemy’s base, they were disappointed to learn that it was old or had nothing to do with them at all. Kurotora growled. He wasn’t the only one getting frustrated, they all were, but aside from Amaya, he stood to lose the most if something went wrong, and worried what might happen to Chutora if he were injured and went longer without help. 

‘I won’t lose another brother!’ he swore silently to himself. ‘I can’t!’

Suddenly, someone padded up next to him and he saw the silver form of Gin gazing back at him expectantly when he looked to see who it was. 

“Anything?” the Akita asked, a worried frown etched into his young face.

Kurotora shook his head.

“Nothing!” he said. “Where the hell did this bastard take them?!”

Gin looked over at his friend and rested a paw on his shoulder gently when he saw the expression of worry on his face. 

“We’ll find him, Kuro.” he said. “I promise.”

The dark-furred dog nodded with a sigh, watching as the Akita turned with a reassuring look and walked silently over towards Smith, who was busy searching for traces of their enemy a short distance away. Kurotora turned back to the woods around them, trying to keep himself at ease so he could think more clearly. He had never been very good at staying calm, and his comrades often had to invent new ways to keep his temper in check, something that he wasn’t particularly proud of. Still, he couldn’t just turn off his emotions, and now wasn’t the time to perfect that particular skill. Hearing a noise to his left, he glanced over and saw Amaya barking orders to her followers, who were fanning out in all directions and taking the search just as seriously as he and his friends were. Despite what was at stake, the female Kai looked relatively unperturbed and Kurotora frowned in amazement, striding over to her moments later. 

“How are you so calm?” he asked bluntly. “This bastard has your sister!”

She glanced over at him for a moment and then panned her gaze to the ground.

“I’m not calm.” she responded. “I’m worried sick. But as leader I can’t afford to let that show. My comrades rely on me. They need to have faith in my decisions.”

Then she looked back at him in obvious concern.

“How are you holding up?”

“Not as well as you.” he said truthfully, then shook his head. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do if I lose Chutora. I can’t go through that again.”

“Again?”

He glanced at her and sat down on his haunches by her side.

“I lost my older brother Akatora during the war against Akakabuto.” he said, feeling strangely vulnerable for opening up so much to her. “It took me a long time to cope after that. I thought it would be easy but…even now I see his face when I sleep. I miss him… I don’t want to lose them both.”

“Then you should try having some faith in him.” Amaya said, and Kurotora frowned at her in confusion. “Chutora. If he’s as stubborn as you are, then he should be able to survive Katsu easily.”

The male Kai looked hurt.

“I **do** have faith in him!” he snapped indignantly. “I just…worry about him is all.”

Amaya smirked at him.

“And you don’t think he worries about you too?” she asked. “He’s your older brother, that’s what they do. If I’m not counting my sister out, then you shouldn’t give up on him either.”

Kurotora was a little taken aback by this, and silently wondered if he **hadn’t** been trusting Chutora’s survival abilities enough. Maybe Amaya had a point, he thought. Before he could dwell on it any longer though, he heard a voice calling through the trees. 

“Amaya! Amaya-san!”

They both looked up together and Kurotora watched as the female pack leader immediately dashed off running towards it, her powerful strides taking her further away from him with each bound. He quickly followed her, the voice’s alarmed tone unnerving him, and soon enough, he found her standing at the edge of a group of her subordinates, Wilson at their center. They were all gathered around something on the ground, and Kurotora frowned as he tried to see what it was. Beside him, Amaya was doing the same.

“What is it?” she demanded. “What’s going on?”

As she tried to walk forward towards what they were looking at, Gin and Smith immediately tried to block her way. 

“Amaya,” the Akita said. “Don’t – ”

“Get out of my way.” she said crossly, pushing past them. “What did you – ”

Suddenly, she trailed off and Kurotora pushed his way forward to see what all the commotion was about. When he followed her gaze, his breath caught in his throat. Laying on the ground in front of them, partially covered by a leaf and surrounded by dried blood, was a severed, red-furred ear, specifically one belonging to a Kai dog. He could tell immediately that it wasn’t Chutora’s and felt a wave of relief wash over him, but Amaya began to tremble seconds later, and he knew that it had to be her sister’s. 

“Sh-Shiori…” she said shakily, reaching a trembling paw towards it, and he lowered his head in concern. 

“Amaya…” he started. “I – ”

Suddenly, she turned and bolted off into the trees again, a howl of rage escaping her throat as Kurotora bounded after her once more.

“Katsu!!” she screamed in a voice born of true hatred. “You bastard! I’ll kill you for this!! Where are you?! Come out here and fight me you – ”

As soon as he got close enough, Kurotora lunged and tackled her roughly to the ground, wrapping his jaws securely around the side of her neck to prevent her from escaping as he did. The two dogs rolled as they went down, and by the time they came to rest, Amaya had ended up on her back with Kurotora on top of her, his paws pushing firmly down on her shoulders to pin her to the ground.

“Get off me!” she yelled, tears streaming down her face, but he shook his head and kept his weight constant.

“No!” he barked, surprised at his own sudden clear-headedness. “Amaya, they need you! Your pack! Running off alone is exactly what he wants! Don’t give it to him!”

“He hurt her!” she cried. “My sister! If he killed her I’m gonna murder– ”

Kurotora suddenly leaned in and gently nuzzled the side of her face, feeling her press into it after a moment or two of uncertainty. For a few seconds, they stayed this way, but then she pulled him closer with her paws, shaking as she tried to calm herself, and he gave her furred cheek a tender lick. 

“We’ll find her.” he said softly, echoing Gin’s words to him. “I give you my word… We’ll get her back.”

Amaya nodded, her crying almost stopped, and he leaned back into the embrace, feeling a warm rush shoot through him as he did. 

‘I was right…’ he thought. ‘This **is** what I want… This feels right…’

Then, someone else came bounding up, and Kurotora looked up in time to see Smith skid to a stop, panting slightly as he did.

“Kuro,” he said urgently. “We – ”

Then he stopped and the Kai dog saw him pull back a little in surprise as he noticed what they had been doing. Moments later, a small smirk spread over the Spaniel’s muzzle.

“Nice…” he said and the Kai dog growled, pushing himself off of Amaya.

“Smith!” he snapped loudly. “You better have good god damn reason for being here or I’ll – ”

“We found a trail!” the smaller dog said, backing up a little apologetically. “We may know where they are!”

Amaya leapt to her paws instantly, all sadness gone from her face and a new determination replacing it. 

“Where?!” she demanded, sounding like a leader again. “Show me!”

Smith nodded and gestured to them both with his head, and Kurotora bounded off after him, feeling Amaya running at his side as they headed back to where Gin and the others were already on the move.   
  


* * *

  
Chutora listened closely as he lay on his side. Their guards were still right outside the cave and he suspected that they were planning on coming back in soon to carry out Katsu’s orders…his execution. He didn’t know how long he had been held captive, but he suspected that it had to have been a few days, his own hunger and the St. Bernard’s predictable movements telling him everything he needed to know. He had planned to escape before, but his captors had wisely kept him as injured as they could to make sure that he couldn’t go far, and he had only recently gotten some of his strength back. He still could’ve tried to get away before, he knew, but that would mean leaving Shiori behind alone, and that was something that was just not an option. 

The female Kai had been his ‘cellmate’ ever since that first day, and he had been greatly impressed with her skill at preventing Katsu from raping her, which seemed to be his favorite thing to do with his female captives. Every time she was dragged out of the room for a private audience with the brutal dog, he would hear angry screaming and she would be tossed back in minutes later, usually with fresh beating wounds and a satisfied smirk on her face. Afterwards, it fell to him to clean those wounds, a favor which she had returned numerous times after Katsu had begun taking out his frustrations on him, and the more time passed, the more protective he seemed to feel towards her. He didn’t quite understand it, but deep down he knew that had they been anywhere else, he would’ve wanted to take their relationship further, despite the short amount of time they had known one another. Now she lay on her side facing him, and as he felt blood trickling down from his neck and nose, courtesy of his latest punishment, he saw her look over at him.

“Chutora,” she said softly, making sure the guards couldn’t hear her. “You should go. You can make it now if you catch them off guard.”

“Save myself and leave you here?” he replied. “Never gonna happen. I’d never be able to live with myself afterward.”

“Please…” she pleaded. “They’re gonna kill you. Go.”

“Hey.” he said, resting a paw gently on hers. “I’m not going anywhere, unless you come too.”

She gave him a happy smile, and then looked at him affectionately.

“I’m gonna hate to see you leave.” she said and he returned the smile.

“You’re not gonna forget me are you?” he teased and she shook her head.

“How could I forget you?” she asked, meeting his gaze. “You’re the first male I ever met who didn’t let me down.”

He felt a rush of affection for her, and then suddenly heard the approaching footsteps of the guards…his executioners. Shiori glanced over her shoulder and then looked back at him, her gaze suddenly sly.

“Ready?” she asked and he grinned toothily.

“Always.” he answered. 

Suddenly, the dogs came into the room. 

“All right, bastard,” one started to say. “It’s time for you to di– ”

He didn’t even get the full word out, as Chutora suddenly shot to his feet without warning, Shiori doing the same beside him, and tackled him hard into the cave’s stone wall, the impact causing a loud noise to echo around the small room. The dog let out a yelp of surprise, but then the Kai dog’s fangs found their way to his neck and his whine turned into a gargling scream as Chutora bit down hard and ripped his throat free from his body, an explosion of blood following in its wake. Seconds later, a similar shriek of pain was heard as Shiori did the same to the other guard, dropping his limp body like something she loathed to touch as soon as she had. Chutora nodded at her. 

“Let’s go!” he barked and they quickly made a run for it, sprinting right past a couple more of Katsu’s stunned subordinates as they leapt out the opening and into the light of the outside world. 

Suddenly, he heard a roar of fury. 

“After them!” the voice shouted. “Kill them, kill them, kill them!!”

It was Katsu himself, back from burying the body of another captive, and Chutora immediately looked over at Shiori, who was struggling mightily against the pain from her wounds as she ran. 

“Faster!” he snapped. “We gotta get back to Gin and the others!”

“I know!”

He pumped his powerful legs faster, trying as well to ignore the throbbing pain that shot through him with every step. 

‘Shit!’ he thought. ‘He’s gaining! We have to move!’

It was no use. Katsu was in better condition and had longer strides, and before they knew it, he was right behind them, his fangs bared and ready to strike the death blow to both of them. 

“You think you can get away from me?! Let’s see how you like **this**!” he snarled, and Chutora turned to take the hit himself and buy Shiori time to escape. 

Suddenly though, a large shape came flying in from the side and hit the brutal dog to the ground as hard as it could, slashing his eye clean out of its socket as it did and making him hit a tree before coming to a stop. Then it landed in front of them and Chutora gaped at it in shock as Katsu pawed at his face screaming. 

“John!” he gasped, letting out a relieved laugh as the Shepherd licked his chops and smirked at him. 

“Get to safety!” he said. “Both of you! We’ll deal with them!”

Then he turned and leapt away, and when Chutora looked after him in confusion, he saw Katsu’s large pack all sprinting through the trees towards them, baying and howling battle cries as they ran. Right as they approached though, Gin and the others arrived as well and met them in a violent clash of bodies and fangs, and the battle was on. Suddenly, he saw Kurotora and Amaya run up to him, and the two sets of siblings greeted each other enthusiastically as they saw that everyone was all right. 

“You had me worried, Chutora!” Kurotora said, clearly relieved to see his brother alive.

“What,” Chutora smirked. “You didn’t trust me?”

“I do now.” came the answer. “Now let’s show these bastards what happens when they mess with Kais!”

The other three all nodded in unison and then they leapt into the battle as well, slashing left and right at Katsu’s struggling subordinates as soon as they reached them. Despite the fact that they were outnumbered, the Ohu Army and their new allies clearly outclassed their opponents, and very quickly the tide of the fight began to turn, with Gin and John leveling multiple dogs at once, and even Wilson taking out enemy after enemy as he fought. It seemed as though the battle had barely begun when already it was ending, and those of Katsu’s terrified minions who were still standing began to make a desperate run into the forest, trying as hard as they could to get away from their much stronger opponents. Suddenly though, as the Ohu Army were all about to come together and regroup, Chutora heard a scream from right beside him and whirled in surprise to see Katsu standing there, his face bloodied and furious…and Shiori’s throat between his jaws. The female Kai choked mightily and Chutora snarled in rage as he saw it, but Katsu growled and took a step back. 

“Back off!” he spat. “All of you **back off**!”

He tightened his grip to prove his point and the group froze as Shiori’s air was cut off almost entirely.

“Let her go, Katsu!” Gin threatened, stepping forward. “This fight is over.”

“Never!” came the snarled answer. “You’re all going to pay for this, you mark my words! For now, I’ll just take her, but I’ll be back for the rest of you! If any of you so much as make a single move towards me, I’ll snap her neck! And I don’t care how fast you are, Gin, we both know that you’ll never be able to kill me before I do!”

The Akita narrowed his eyes angrily, stopping his advance, and they all watched as the St. Bernard continued to back away from them, biting deeper every time they tried to follow. Then the huge dog leered down at his captive. 

“You wait until I get you alone, bitch.” he rumbled. “I’m gonna teach you the meaning of respect…and pain.” 

“Ch-Chutora!” Shiori choked in fear and the Kai dog started to lunge forward. 

“Ah ah!” Katsu snapped, holding her up again and biting deep enough to make blood stream from around his teeth. “Don’t even think about it!”

Chutora froze in his tracks and the St. Bernard smirked at him.

“I’ll tell her you said goodbye.” he said.

The elder Kai brother growled in anger and fear as Katsu started to turn away, hearing Amaya doing the same beside him, and even Gin looked to be at a loss for what to do without endangering the female Kai’s life. Suddenly, though, as Katsu was passing a tree with sharp, low-growing branches, the whole Ohu group saw a dark shape lunge out of nowhere from a branch high above and fly down at the huge dog with it’s fangs bared and ready to strike. 

“Raikaken!” it yelled fiercely and before they could even react, the shape landed on the back of the St. Bernard’s head and slammed it down eye-first onto one of the sharp branches, leaping off to the side as soon as it had. 

Katsu let out a long shriek of pain and dropped Shiori from his grip, pawing uselessly at the branch that had speared through him as she scrambled away to safety. As soon as they saw this, Gin and the others all ran forward as fast as they could, and Chutora quickly pulled her protectively to his side, getting safely between her and the thrashing Katsu as he did. Then they all finally got a look at the dog who had saved her life, and gasped in shock as they saw him. 

“Zach?!” multiple voices said at once and the Malamute nodded back at them, panting slightly.

Then he looked back up at the tree he had just jumped out of.

“How was that one?” he called and when they followed his gaze, they saw Akame resting calmly on another nearby branch, watching the scene with a teacher’s careful eye.

“Much better!” he responded with a reassuring nod. “You did well. But it’s ‘Iga Ninpou Raikaken’. Not just ‘Raikaken’.”

Zach snorted.

“I’m not an Iga ninja.” he said. “I go my own way.”

Akame rolled his eyes and leapt down from the tree, landing gracefully beside him seconds later. 

“No.” he agreed half-teasingly. “You’re **definitely** not an Iga Ninja.”

The younger dog scowled and Gin and John stepped forward, both looking happy to see them. 

“Akame,” the Akita said. “I thought you would be gone for longer.”

“He’s made great strides.” came the almost proud sounding answer. “He’s a faster learner than I thought he’d be. I figured we could wait on the rest until we get back to Ohu, leader.”

Then he looked at Zach.

“You still need a lot of work.” he said. “No one becomes a great fighter in 4 days. But you did well, Zach.”

“Thank you, sir.” the Malamute answered, and when John blinked in surprise upon hearing him added: “You hear that, John? I did a good job. You’ve got some catching up to do.”

The Shepherd snorted.

“I doubt it.” he said with a grin. “That was about as graceful as a rock.”

Before anyone could respond though, Katsu let out another howl of pain and they looked over to see him trying unsuccessfully to pull himself off the branch. 

“Y-You motherfucker!” he yelled in furious agony, his whole body thrashing as he kept trying to free himself. “I’ll kill you!”

“I know.” Zach said sarcastically. “The world’s not fair is it? Which is another way of saying: you’ll live.”

At that, Smith and Wilson walked over to the huge dog and carefully yanked him off the branch, dropping him to the ground as soon as they had. Then Gin looked over at Amaya, who still stood by Kurotora. 

“Amaya,” he said with a nod of his head. “This is your territory. I leave his fate up to you.”

She looked surprised for a moment, but then panned her gaze to the pitiful looking St. Bernard, who’s newfound blindness seemed to be disorienting him greatly as he lay on his side in front of her. 

“I should kill you for what you did to us,” she hissed angrily, and Katsu’s trembling head whipped towards her voice. “For the good lives you took. But I won’t. And do you know why?”

She leaned in towards him, Kurotora moving closer protectively.

“Because I’m not you.” she spat and then stepped back again. “My subordinates will escort you back to Yamagata. If you resist, we’ll take you by force. They’ll know exactly how to deal with you there. Don’t ever set foot in my territory again.”

With that, she nodded at a small group of her soldiers and they all half dragged Katsu to his feet and began pushing him roughly towards the East, where Yamagata lay. Moments later, they were all gone from sight, and Gin nodded at her in approval. 

“Well done,” he said. “Leader.”

She smiled slightly back at him. 

“Gin,” she said, “I can’t thank you enough for helping us. Now though, it’s up to us to rebuild the peace around here. With Katsu gone, maybe we can make our territory feel like a home again.”

The Akita gave her a small nod.

“I’m sure that you will.” he said kindly, “It was an honor to meet you.”

“The honor was all mine,” she replied. “Gin of Ohu.”

Then she gave each one of them a nod and turned away, gesturing to her gathered subordinates as she did. They all immediately followed her, trotting away back towards their base, and for a moment, Kurotora looked torn, glancing back and forth between them and his friends even as Chutora followed after Amaya, supporting Shiori as he did and helping her to make it home. The dark furred Kai dog looked at Gin.

“Gin,” he said almost apologetically. “I – ”

“Go.” the Akita smiled, nodding in the direction that Amaya had disappeared. “We’ll see you back in Ohu when you’re ready.”

A wide grin spread over Kurotora’s face and John smirked.

“Go get her, Kuro.” he said and that was all the encouragement that the Kai dog needed.

Turning his head, he bounded after the Niigata clan, vanishing amongst the trees as well a few seconds later. Zach snorted and glanced at Akame.

“Typical.” he said. “No love for the **real** heroes, right sir?”

Akame smiled amusedly and Smith looked over at Zach from the Kishu’s other side as the group turned and once again began making their way North.

“You expected something from them,” he asked. “Really? You weren’t even here!”

“Oh come on,” Zach grinned. “A ‘thank-you kiss’ at least would’ve been welcome.”

Gin rolled his eyes with a smile and John snorted over at the Malamute.

“What self respecting female would stoop low enough to kiss **you**?” he asked, making Smith and Wilson chuckle and Gin chide:

“John!”

Zach just smirked.

“Jealous John?” he asked. “Scared that I might have kids before you?”

John let out a loud laugh.

“You and kids?” he said. “Now **there’s** a disaster the world doesn’t need!”

“Oh, and you think anyone will cheer having a little version of **you** running around?” the Malamute scoffed. “I think they’d rather chew off a testicle.”

“What would you even **name** a kid?” the Shepherd snorted. “‘The Master **Plan** ’?”

Zach let out a bark-like laugh and put a paw on the other male’s shoulder.

“Don’t worry, John,” he smiled tauntingly. “You’ll always have your paw to keep you company.”

“WHAT?!”

Gin laughed despite himself and glanced over at Akame, who was shaking his head beside him as John bit repeatedly at the other male in fury. 

“I guess some things never change, huh?” he grinned and the Kishu sighed, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as the group began leaving the Niigata clan’s territory behind.

“You have no idea, Gin.” he said. “You have no idea.”


End file.
